BATON ROUGE, La. – The LSU volleyball team closes a string of three matches in six days on Wednesday night, hosting the Tennessee Volunteers at 8 p.m. in the Pete Maravich Assembly Center and televised live on ESPNU.
All 2015 LSU home matches are free to the public from The Advocate’s “Geaux Free” promotion, as the Tigers have seven remaining home matches in the season from now until November.
Along with Wednesday being a Tiger Night for the LSU Student-Athlete Advisory Committee, the match against the Volunteers will also be Greek Night as all LSU fraternities and sororities are encouraged to come out, as the organization with the highest attendance will earn a prize. All LSU students in attendance will also be treated to a barbecue beginning at 7 p.m. with food located in the Courtside Club in the lower northwest corridor of the building.
ESPNU will televise its second match from the Mararvich Center this season, led by the announcing duo of Cara Capuano and Jenny Hazelwood. The homepage of LSUsports.net will have links to live streaming video provided by WatchESPN and live stats, with continuous updates through the team’s social media pages on Facebook and Twitter.
The Tigers head into its only match of the week looking to keep pace in the top half of the Southeastern Conference standings after going 1-1 in a pair of five-set thrillers last weekend on the road at Georgia and Auburn. LSU is 6-9 overall on the season and 2-2 in the league, as Tennessee will be looking to do the same with a 16-3 overall record and matching 2-2 conference mark.
“This is a huge match for us as it’s a night game, on national television and we’re expecting a good crowd against a very good Tennessee team,” head coach Fran Flory said. “Tennessee is much better team than the one we faced last year, and they are going to step on the other side of the net from us Wednesday night as a confident group that is looking to continue to play well after a good pre-conference schedule.”
Last weekend began with a bang as LSU went into Athens and came away with a comeback victory over the Bulldogs, but ended with a whimper as the squad would be unable to match that feat against Auburn in another tightly contested match. Both matches went five sets, as LSU has had three of its four conference matches go that long and has played four in their last five altogether.
The one constant in both of those contests was the play of sophomore hitter Gina Tillis, who on Monday was named the SEC Offensive Player of the Week for her efforts. Tillis averaged over five kills, three digs and six points per set after those two matches, and the only player with double figure kills, where against Georgia she earned the second most kills by a Tiger in a match in program history with 37, coming back with 20 against Auburn to up her season average to 3.28 kills per set, sitting second in the league with a 4.87 average.
Defensively, LSU fared well in spots, holding both teams to a combined .160 hitting clip, averaging 17.20 digs per set and 19 total blocks for a 1.90 blocks per set clip. In the Auburn match alone the Tigers had four players finish with double-digit digs, with three having nearly 20.
Senior Haley Smith tied her career-high with 30 in the match, with Cati Leak having 19 and Katie Lindelow coming off the bench to register 19 as well. Smith now has over 1,400 digs all-time to move up to third place in LSU history and can move into second place by the end of the night Wednesday, while Leak is 15 digs shy of earning 1,000 for her career, where she would become just the sixth player ever to have 1,000 kills and digs in a single career at LSU.
Leading the blocking contingent for the first time on Sunday and on the weekend was freshman Toni Rodriguez, earning eight while also leading the team in solo blocks with three. Junior Tiara Gibson continues to lead the team with 35 total blocks, as she played in nine sets last week had seven blocks, including two on the solo end.
LSU has won the last three meetings against the Volunteers, claiming six of the last ten contests against Tennessee. This is the first of two scheduled meetings between the two sides this season, with LSU making the trip to Knoxville on October 30.
“Tennessee’s outside hitters are doing a very good job for them and I think as a whole they are a bit more balanced than we are,” Flory said. “Our offense is going to have to balance itself out and have somebody step up and start putting some shots away, shifting away from where we were last weekend.”
For all of the latest news and information on Tiger volleyball, visit www.lsusports.net/volleyball. Fans can also follow the program on its social media outlets at www.Facebook.com/lsuvolleyball along with @lsuvolleyball and @lsucoachfran on Twitter and @lsuvb on Instagram.
AT A GLANCE – Tennessee
MATCH
LSU (6-9, 2-2 SEC) vs Tennessee (16-3, 2-2 SEC)
DATE/TIME
Oct. 7 – 8 p.m. CT
FACILITY
Maravich Center
AVCA RANKINGS
LSU – NR
Tennessee – NR
MULTIMEDIA
LSUsports.net – live stats
LIVE STREAM
WatchESPN
TV
ESPNU