BATON ROUGE, La. – The LSU volleyball team returns to action on Friday afternoon hosting the No. 14 Florida Gators at 5 p.m. in the Maravich Center and televised live on the SEC Network.
The final two home matches of the 2015 season this weekend are free to fans, a promotion provided by The Advocate’s “Geaux Free” program. After the match, the volleyball team will take pictures with fans on the court near the team’s bench inside the facility.
Friday’s match is the fourth in a string of network matches for LSU, as the final televised game for the team this season will be called by Paul Sunderland and Nell Fortner. An online stream of the match will be available via WatchESPN, with a link to video and live stats provided on the homepage of LSUsports.net. Fans can also follow updates through the team’s social media pages on Facebook and Twitter.
The Tigers will close out the home season with a pair of ranked opponents beginning with the Gators on Friday afternoon, turning around on Sunday and hosting the 19th ranked Kentucky Wildcats on Senior Day. Over the course of the season LSU has played six matches against ranked teams, or teams receiving votes in the AVCA Top 25 poll the day of the match.
LSU goes into the weekend looking to snap a five-match losing skid, sitting at 9-16 on the year and 5-9 in the Southeastern Conference. The Tigers have four total matches remaining this season, closing the year on the road next week with a pair of matches over Thanksgiving. But before getting to next week, LSU will set its sights on Florida, the current third-place team in the SEC.
“Playing a team that is playing this well this late into the season is always a challenge, and Florida has been a solid program every year,” head coach Fran Flory said. “I think we’ll play good defense against them, but the defining factor for us is whether we can put kills away.”
LSU was last in action on Sunday afternoon, traveling to Oxford to take on the Ole Miss Rebels where the team fell in four sets, but nearly staged a comeback by pushing Ole Miss to the brink in the fourth set. After dropping the first two, the Tigers won the third and were leading in the fourth before Ole Miss was able to rally and claim the fourth to win the match.
Although the team fell just short of flipping the match completely on its ear, the Tigers were able to take some positives away as the squad finished the match hitting .172 – its highest number five matches – with more kills, assists, digs and blocks than the home side by the end of the contest.
Leading the way in the match was sophomore outside hitter Gina Tillis, who finished with 19 on a .227 hitting clip, adding seven digs, two assists and a block. Tillis is leading the team averaging 3.41 kills per set this season, as the Texan has led the team in kills in seven of the last 10 matches on the season.
Earning her third double-double of the season was fellow sophomore Mimi Eugene, who came away with 11 kills and match-leading 14 digs against Ole Miss. It was Eugene’s sixth double-double of her career, as the Houston native has four matches this year with double figure kills and five with double figure digs this season in 17 matches.
Cheyenne Wood led the team in assists with 22 last Sunday, as she is averaging 5.43 assists per set on the year. Wood has led the setters in assists 20 times in matches this year, earning double-digit assists in 22 contests and having no less than 20 assists 12 matches.
Senior and all-time LSU digs leader Haley Smith still leads the squad in digs, averaging 4.43 per set with 416 on the year. She extended her lead in the category by nine on Sunday, now having 1,540 digs in her career. Keeping with the defense, freshman Olivia Beyer tied her season high with eight blocks against the Rebels to lead all players in the match, as she currently leads the team with 59 blocks on the year with a 1.05 blocks per set average.
The Gators come in on a two-match winning streak, with a 20-5 overall record and 12-4 league mark. Florida has been at the top of the heap in the RPI for much of the season, coming in fourth this week with the third-toughest schedule in the nation and second-toughest non-conference schedule.
“Florida has some very physical and very gifted volleyball players,” Flory said. “Their system is one that we should be able to defend, but the match is going to come down to us matching their physicality, as well as bringing some offense of our own.”
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 – Florida
MATCH
LSU (9-16, 5-9 SEC) vs. Florida (25-8, 12-4 SEC)
DATE/TIME
Nov. 20 – 5 p.m. CT
FACILITY
Maravich Center
AVCA RANKINGS
LSU – NR
Florida – 14
MULTIMEDIA
LSUsports.net – live stats
LIVE STREAM
WatchESPN
TV
SEC Network