Editor’s note: Longtime Baton Rouge sportswriter, author and television host Lee Feinswog takes his unique approach to sports to dig deeper into LSU Athletics. Look for these features online and in official athletics department publications throughout the 2014-15 season.
A year ago, sometime in the few days before LSU shocked the college volleyball world by traveling to Seattle, stunning Michigan in the first round of the NCAA Tournament and giving eventual semifinalist Washington all it could handle on its home court, Briana Holman was so scared she said that she cried like a baby.
“I was so nervous because it was something I’d always dreamed of,” Holman said. “I couldn’t sleep. I was so nervous.”
This year, the LSU sophomore middle blocker, no doubt about to be named at least an honorable-mention All-American, is a lot calmer as the Tigers travel to Eugene, Oregon, for the first round.
First up on Thursday night is a matchup with Oklahoma, which happens to have three of Holman’s former club teammates and another from her town of DeSoto, Texas.
“I know what to expect,” Holman said. “I’m not as nervous. I’ve been talking to some of the freshmen because they’re nervous kind of what I was like last year.”
As best as can be figured none of them went to coach Fran Flory‘s office and cried for an hour this week as Holman said she did last year.
No, this group of LSU youngsters is ready to go west again. Should LSU (19-8 overall, 14-4 in the Southeastern Conference) beat Oklahoma of the Big 12, a probable matchup with host Oregon looms large.
But Oklahoma (20-10, 10-6) is one of only two teams to beat league rival Texas, one of the top four seeds in the tournament. For that matter, the Sooners swept at Texas in their first meeting and lost in five in their second in Norman.
Truly it’s a tough matchup for both teams. LSU finished third in the SEC this season, behind perennial winner Florida and Kentucky — for that matter, three of the Tigers’ four SEC losses were to those two schools — but on a good night, LSU can play with anyone.
It starts with Holman and senior setter Malorie Pardo, who has been tremendous the past couple of months after a shaky start to 2014, and junior libero Haley Smith, who was spectacular in the match last year against Michigan — she had a career-high 29 digs, some of them simply remarkable.
“It was very emotional because it was the first time I went to the tournament and the first time the team had gone in a while,” said Smith, who gets her nickname of “Peanut” honestly at 5-foot-4, 112 pounds in a game dominated by taller women.
But she said they learned a valuable lesson, in that the NCAA Tournament represents a fresh start.
For LSU this season, that’s not all bad. The Tigers were on an 11-match winning streak when they fell at lowly Mississippi State on November 16. That five-set defeat not only dropped LSU from 21 to 38 in the NCAA RPI at the time, it was also a match the Tigers played without sophomore Cati Leak, suspended for violating team rules.
Leak, a big right side, is second to Holman (413) with 271 kills and is third on the team in digs with 244 behind Smith (474) and Katie Lindelow. Leak had a career night against Michigan last year with 22 kills.
Since the State defeat, LSU has beaten Missouri, Auburn and South Carolina.
Lindelow is another who missed a match because of violating team rules, and since then has been at her best. For that matter, the junior outside hitter was named this week’s SEC Defensive Player of the Week, for her 22 digs against South Carolina. What’s more, Lindelow also had 11 kills and in the past four matches seems to have newfound offensive power.
“Katie’s balance has been that she can always play both sides of the game,” Flory said. “She’s always been a great passer, she’s always been a great defender, she doesn’t always put all the pieces together at the same time. Nice time to be doing that now.”
“I think a couple of weeks ago a lot of us had hit that fatigue point,” Lindelow said. “We’re meshing at the right time.”
Flory, in her 17th year at LSU, won a national title as a player at Texas, was an assistant on LSU’s 1990 and ’91 teams that went to final fours, and is about to take her own Tigers to the NCAA Tournament for the eighth time in 10 seasons.
“We’re healthy. We’re healthier now than we were a week ago,” Flory said. “Leak was banged up, Haley was banged up, and we now are recovering and are in a better spot today that we were seven days ago.”
LSU is also a long way from being 0-3 in the SEC.
“We’ve been doing the positive ‘Energy Bus’ and believe it or not, positive energy takes you a long way,” Holman said. “Thinking positively versus thinking negatively has made us so much better.”
“I think it took a long time to figure out who we wanted to be and what kind of team we wanted to be,” Lindelow said. “We’ve done a good job of it, but it took us a while to grow into our own skin.”
Accordingly, that skin is now pretty thick, something that Flory appreciates. Especially since LSU relies heavily on some youngsters, not the least of which is freshman outside Gina Tillis who had 17 kills and 11 digs, a career high, against South Carolina.
Tillis will start at one outside opposite Lindelow and another newcomer, junior Emily Ehrle, a transfer from Texas Tech who finally broke into the lineup 17 matches ago, will be at the other middle. Senior Madi Mahaffey has also taken on the role of super sub, giving LSU valuable middle minutes when needed.
By the way, despite all her tears, Holman had 15 kills and six blocks against Michigan and, in an interesting way the volleyball world works, played on a junior national team last summer that was coached by Michigan’s Mark Rose.
In that next match, Washington did a great job on Holman, holding her to five kills. Leak had 12 and Smith 25 digs.
The good news is that should LSU advance, while Oregon is tough at home and boasts perhaps the best woman athlete in the country in four-sport participant Liz Brenner, a volleyball All-American, Oregon is not Washington.
“If you’re out you’re out,” Flory said, comparing the NCAA Tournament to the high-level club tournaments that so many college players were used to in high school. “You don’t get another chance, so that mentality is a bigger challenge than preparing them today (in practice).
“They have to understand that this is win or go home.”
Lindelow gets it.
“We’re ready,” she said, “to make it a longer run.”
And that’s nothing to cry about.