BATON ROUGE, La. – Fresh off of a sweep Friday night, the LSU volleyball team returns to action on Sunday afternoon, closing a three-match homestand with a date against the Alabama Crimson Tide at 2 p.m. inside the Maravich Center and televised live on the SEC Network.
All home LSU volleyball matches are free to the public courtesy of The Advocate’s “Geaux Free” promotion. An hour before the match the team will hold its Brunch, Set, Spike event from 1-2 p.m. in the Courtside Club, located in the lower northwest corner of the facility. Also at that time the Dad’s and Daughters group will be holding a pumpkin decorating event for its members ahead of the match.
Sam Gore and Dain Blanton will be the commentators for Sunday’s match on the SEC Network, which will also be streamed live online via WatchESPN. Links to the stream, as well as live stats of the match, can be found on the homepage for all LSU athletics at LSUsports.net.
Winners of their last two, and four of the last five overall, the Tigers have regrouped well after a tough start to the year to see the team just one win away from getting to the .500 mark for the first time all season. LSU is currently 8-9 overall and 4-2 in the Southeastern Conference, in a tie for third place heading into its match with the Crimson Tide.
Away from competition for more than a week after a bye weekend, LSU looked like a fresh team and played that way, running through the Mississippi State Bulldogs to the tune of a straight-sets sweep Friday night, hitting .240 as a group while holding the visitors to a .101 hitting clip in a solid all-around performance. The Tigers were able to key in on scoring runs to help its cause on Friday, as MSU would be unable to keep pace as LSU moved to 3-1 at home in SEC matches this season.
An offense that seemed to be locking in on having just one player be the focal point of the offense, Friday night showed the balanced approach the team is taking toward the rest of the year, as three players earned the bulk of the attacks, but not without having five players account for kills on the night. Still, LSU has been hitting at an efficient clip, hitting above .200 in five of its last six, while committing fewer than 20 errors for the second consecutive match.
The three players with the bulk of the touches on the night were spread between senior Cati Leak, sophomore Gina Tillis and freshman Toni Rodriguez. Leak and Rodriguez led the match with 13 kills each, both hitting above .300, while Tillis had 26 swings and nine kills. Working in tandem to help run that offense were setters Cheyenne Wood and Lindsay Flory, having 19 and 18 assists, respectively.
It was a special night for Leak, who became the sixth player in LSU volleyball history to eclipse 1,000 kills and digs in a single career, as her five on Friday put her at 1,002. The team leader in kills, also increased her service ace lead to 21, tying her career high of three against Mississippi State.
Defensively, Olivia Beyer helped the Tigers claim another match with double-digit blocks, led by her seven as she finished one shy of tying her individual and team season high for the season. It helped her leap from third to first on the team chart, giving her 38 for the year as she’s currently averaging 1.23 blocks per set.
It was a team effort, as Emily Ehrle, Leak and Flory each had three, with Tillis stopping two.
Katie Lindelow led the team in digs for the second consecutive match as the team’s starting libero, corralling 13 digs to be the only player on the night in double figures. The rest of the squad’s 32 would be spread out with Haley Smith and Leak having five, with Tillis and Wood having four.
Sunday is the first of two meetings against Alabama this season, as the two sides will lock horns to close the regular season the day after Thanksgiving on November 27. Alabama won the only meeting last season in Tuscaloosa in four sets, while LSU has won seven of the last 10 against the Crimson Tide overall.
“Alabama is a very physical team and very different team with a different tempo than what we played tonight,” head coach Fran Flory said. “We have a great game plan put together, but we are going to have to execute it. We will practice a little bit and make sure our kids feel comfortable with what we want to accomplish Sunday.”
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 – Alabama
MATCH
LSU (8-9, 4-2 SEC) vs Alabama (8-11, 2-3 SEC)
DATE/TIME
Oct. 18 – 2 p.m. CT
FACILITY
Maravich Center
AVCA RANKINGS
LSU – NR
Alabama – NR
MULTIMEDIA
LSUsports.net – live stats
LIVE STREAM
WatchESPN
TV
SEC Network