BATON ROUGE, La. – Against the No. 14 Florida Gators, the LSU volleyball team battled through every point to push the visiting side, but wouldn’t have enough to overcome in the end falling 25-22-25-20, 25-13 Friday evening inside the Maravich Center.
The Tigers (9-17, 5-10 Southeastern) had trouble stopping the high-powered offense of the Gators (21-5, 13-4), as Florida hit .308 in the match with 44 kills, while LSU was able to find a spark offensively through the middle, but finished the night hitting .082 with 34 kills and into 14 team blocks for Florida.
“I don’t know that we went into the match thinking that we would use our middles so much, but when we kind of discovered it, we were going to stick with it,” head coach Fran Flory said. “I’m excited that Brittany (Welsh) had such a great match against some pretty special players on the other side of the net. Olivia (Beyer) held her own, too. Two freshmen matching up against that lineup is a little glimpse of the future perhaps.”
Brittany Welsh hit .438 on the night with nine kills to tie for the team lead along with sophomore Gina Tillis, who added five digs, two blocks and an assist Friday night. Mimi Eugene had five kills and nine digs for LSU in the match.
“I think the kills from the middle were working so well because we have a really fast offense, and we were going up against a big block,” Welsh said. “A good way to defend that is to speed up your offense, especially in the middle of the court. It was really beneficial for us.”
Lindsay Flory led the setters with 17 assists, adding a kill, while Cheyenne Wood had 14 assists, four digs and a kill for LSU.
Haley Smith earned her ninth match with at least 20 digs, earning that many to lead all players while having two assists and a service ace for LSU. Olivia Beyer tied Tillis for the team lead in blocks with two, as LSU had three as a team against Florida.
Alex Holston led all players with 14 kills for Florida, as Mackenzie Dagostino had 35 assists, nine digs and three kills. Nikki O’Rourke had 14 digs and five assists, while Rhamat Alhassan and Simone Antwi had seven blocks each.
LSU wasted little time in setting the tone of pushing the tempo early, as the opening set featured eight ties and four lead changes in the opening salvo of the contest. Of the eight, six came within the first 12 points as the Tigers were able to use Gator unforced errors to continue to put pressure on the visitors to perform.
After falling behind 8-6, LSU went on the offensive, going on a 5-1 run to pull ahead 11-9, capped by a Smith service ace to force Florida into burning its first timeout. While LSU was able to grab some of the momentum, the Gators came back to life and tied the match again a 13-13. After a short string of point-trading, Florida broke a 15-all tie by scoring four of the next five to force LSU into a timeout.
LSU would burn its second shortly after, trailing 21-17. However, it wouldn’t be the last timeout used in the set, as LSU pulled within two points after trailing 23-19 by getting a kill from Emily Ehrle and Gator attacking error to make it 23-21 and force Florida into using its final timeout. While LSU would make it close, Florida would go on to take the first set 25-22.
The Tigers produced the same amount of kills (13) in the second set, while reducing its attacking errors from nine to just six. Tillis had four kills to lead LSU, while Welsh added three and getting two each from Beyer and Eugene. However, Florida hit .333 with 18 kills in the second and added five blocks of their own.
A Eugene kill gave LSU a 5-4 lead early in the frame, but from there Florida would go on to take seven of the next 10 points to go up 11-7 with LSU calling a timeout. After settling down, LSU got right back in it, scoring five of the next eight to pull within one of Florida at 14-13 to force the visitors into a timeout. A service error out of the break stopped the LSU rally, as Florida got to the 20-point mark first, going up 20-16 to force LSU into burning its second timeout.
The closest LSU would get from there was just four points, as Florida took a 2-0 lead after taking the second set 25-20.
Out of the intermission break, Florida wasted little time in setting the tone for the third, racing out to a 6-0 lead to put the Tigers in a deep hole early. Florida produced its best hitting line of the night in the third, hitting .393 by the time the set was over, leading by as many as 12 late as the Gators earned the sweep by taking the third 25-13.
“Our shot selection was really poor. We hit every ball into the middle of the court, and we attacked the middle of their block. It was not the game plan,” Fran said. “We kept talking about turning to the ball and getting to the sidelines and cross-court and side corners. We really didn’t do a very good job of that, unfortunately. I don’t know if it was the setting or the tempo or the individual shot selection. It was probably a combination of all of the above.”
LSU will return to action on Sunday afternoon at 1 p.m., closing the home portion of the schedule against the Kentucky Wildcats. The team will honor its four-member senior class of Emily Ehrle, Cati Leak, Katie Lindelow and Haley Smith on Senior Day. The match will also be streamed live on SEC Network+ and available through WatchESPN.
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.