BATON ROUGE, La. – Closing out a three-match homestand, the LSU volleyball team was locked in a heated battle against the Alabama Crimson Tide Sunday afternoon, needing to go to five sets to decide a winner as the Tigers would be unable to capitalize late, falling to the Crimson Tide 18-25, 25-22, 22-25, 25-16, 15-4 inside the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.
In a see-saw battle from the start, the two teams went into the locker room after splitting the first two sets, as from there the stalemate continued leading to a fifth where the Tigers (8-10, 4-3 Southeastern) would begin to struggle offensively, while Alabama (9-11, 3-3) began to regroup and got stronger as the match wore on, jumping out to a 10-point advantage in the fifth and never looking back to earn the win over LSU.
“We absolutely lost our offense. The fact that they caught a groove offensively, all of our focus and our mental energy went to trying to stop them,” head coach Fran Flory said. “We didn’t realize that we needed to go kill-for-kill and trade kills with them. I kept talking to them about it, but I couldn’t break our mentality or break into our kids’ mentality to say ‘they get a kill, we get a kill.’ We will just trade kills until someone breaks through.”
The Tigers were led by sophomore outside hitter Gina Tillis, who finished the day hitting .268 with 19 kills, five digs and three blocks. Toni Rodriguez finished with 15 kills and hit .333 to go along with her three digs, followed by Cati Leak who earned a double-double with 11 kills and 13 digs, with two assists, a block and service ace.
LSU hit .226 as a team, hitting a blistering .471 in the first set with 17 kills to just one error, but from there would only finish with an efficiency as high as .265 for the rest of the match, While Alabama started out hitting .188 before finishing the day hitting above .500 in the final two sets.
“I think we started focusing on one thing instead of focusing on ourselves and playing as a team,” Tillis said. “Next time, we need to make sure we are playing as a team and not focusing on one certain play on defense or offense.”
Cheyenne Wood served up 26 assists for LSU on Sunday, earning two digs, two kills and a service ace, while Lindsay Flory had 20 assists with a dig and a block.
Katie Lindelow finished a dig shy of her season high on Sunday, earning 18 with three assists. Emily Ehrle and Tillis led the team in blocks with three, as both accounted for each of the team’s solo blocks in the match.
Alabama’s Krystal Rivers and Kat Hutson combined for 42 of the Crimson Tide’s 70 kills in the match, with Rivers earning a double-double with 13 digs, while Hutson hit .487 to go along with her four digs and a service ace.
Sierra Wilson led the match with 63 assists, adding five digs and three kills, while Natalie Murison led all players with 23 digs, serving up three assists.
Even with nine ties and five lead changes between the two in the first, the Tigers were humming at a clip not yet achieved by the team before Sunday, hitting into only one error with six different Tigers earning kills in the frame.
With the opener tied at 10-10, the Tigers went on a 5-2 run to take a 15-12 lead over the Crimson Tide heading into the media timeout. After Alabama got the first point to pull within two, LSU got a kill from Leak and Rodriguez, followed by an Alabama attack error to go up 18-13 and force Alabama into using its first timeout, forcing another when claiming four of the next six to go up 22-15 after. Alabama wouldn’t have an answer and LSU went on to take the set 25-18 after a Tillis kill put LSU up 1-0.
The difference between the first and second set for both sides would be nearly microscopic, with Alabama having 13 kills and 12 digs to LSU’s 12 and 11, as the Tigers corralled 16 digs to Alabama’s 15. In the end it came down to a small string of points as the Crimson Tide led throughout, fending off four ties, as LSU pulled within two, but that would be the closest they would get at 21-23 as Alabama took the set 25-22 to tie the match at 1-1.
The best set for any Tiger came in the third, led by Tillis as she tied the individual match high with eight kills in the frame, hitting .636. LSU as a whole was able to overcome a .312 hitting set by the Crimson Tide, powering through six ties and four lead changes, winning the side out battle with 60 percent to Alabama’s 54 percent.
The Tigers earned the early advantage, rattling off four straight points after a 6-all tie to go up 10-6 and force the Crimson Tide into a timeout. Although for a while it looked like LSU would run away with the set, Alabama slowly began to chip away and eventually wound up tying the set at 18-18 to force the Tigers into a timeout.
It was a brand-new set at that point, with the two sides trading leads, with the final for Alabama coming up 20-19. A kill from Tillis ignited a four-point swing for the home side that led to a three-point advantage, giving LSU enough to pull out the set 25-22 and go up 2-1.
LSU wouldn’t able to find an answer for Alabama in the fourth, as the visitors put away 20 shots on a .529 hitting percentage, the most for either side up until that point of the match. The majority of the eight ties and four lead changes in the set came within the first 20 points, as the Crimson Tide pulled away by outscoring LSU 15-6 after a 10-10 tie to knot the set at two sets a piece and heading to the fifth.
Alabama did one better in the percentage department in the fifth, hitting .533 with nine kills and one error, while LSU hit in the negatives with two kills and five errors on 18 swings. The Crimson Tide was perfect on side outs, while LSU was 4-for-15, and never had a chance to recover.
The Crimson Tide earned the first four points straightaway, as LSU would only be able to get two points before the two teams switched sides, now trailing 8-2. Alabama would lead by as many as 10 going up 12-2, as service error and Alabama attack error would be the final two points for the Tigers in the match, falling 15-4 with Alabama earning the win.
“We allowed the fact that they were frustrating us on defense. They did a great job. You have to credit them,” Flory said. “. We allowed that to take us out of our offensive rhythm, which we started with a great offensive rhythm—the best all year. Then, we kind of broke and could never regain it unfortunately.”
LSU will be back in action on Wednesday night, traveling to College Station to take on the Texas A&M Aggies at 7 p.m. in Reed Arena. The match will be televised live on the SEC Network.
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