LSU Gold

Volleyball Drops Match Against Tennessee

by Chelsey Chamberlain
Box Score +0
Volleyball Drops Match Against Tennessee

BATON ROUGE – The LSU volleyball team dropped its Sunday afternoon match against Tennessee in four sets by scores of 25-23, 19-25, 28-30, 15-25. The Tigers are now 7-13 on the season and 2-7 in the SEC. Tennessee improves to 16-5 on the year and 7-2 in the league. 

Taylor Bannister led the Tigers with 15 kills while Raigen Cianciulli picked up 30 digs. Toni Rodriguez added 13 kills. Lindsay Flory finished with a double-double, her sixth on the season, with 14 assists and 12 digs. Katie Kampen added 10 digs. 

UP NEXT

  • The Tigers will be on the road next week, traveling to Missouri on Friday. First serve is set for 8 p.m. CT and the match will air on SEC Network.  

HOW IT HAPPENED

  • LSU trailed early as Tennessee got out to a 6-1 lead. The Tigers took a timeout, but Tennessee came out hot, scoring four more points before the Tigers put another point on the board.
  • The Tigers worked their way back, going a 3-0 run to force Tennessee to a timeout. Out of the timeout, the Tigers continued to push, scoring back-to-back points to come within four, 13-9.
  • LSU tied up at the set at 18-18 after a 6-1 run, forcing Tennessee to a timeout. The two teams went back and forth out of the timeout. LSU took their first lead of the set at 22-21 on attacking error by the Vols.
  • Tennessee tied the set up 22-22, but the Tigers scored the next two points to take a 24-22 lead. The Vols got a kill, but the Tigers finished off the set, 25-23, after a big block by Lindsay Flory and Jacqui Armer.
  • Taylor Bannister and Toni Rodriguez led the attack in the first set with three kills apiece. Raigen Cianciulli and Katie Kampen both picked up three digs.
  • The Vols got out to a 3-1 lead, but the Tigers took the next three points. The Vols went on a 4-0 run to take an 8-5 lead and continued to push to a 15-11 lead into the media timeout.
  • Tennessee pushed to a 18-12 lead and forced the Tigers to a timeout. The Tigers got back-to-back kills from Rodriguez and Bannister to bring the score to 23-17.
  • LSU held off Tennessee for two set points, but the Vols took the set 25-19.
  • Bannister led the Tigers in the second set with six kill. Cianciulli picked up eight digs.
  • In the third set, the Tigers scored the first two points on a Anna Zwiebel ace and a Tennessee attaching error. Tennessee went on to score the next three points. The Tigers tied it up at 3-3, but Tennessee went on a 7-3 run to take a 10-6 lead.
  • The Tigers took a timeout at 12-6 and came out with more energy as they work their way back, coming within three, 14-11, and forcing Tennessee to a timeout. Out of the timeout, the Tigers scored two and pushed to come within two, 19-17.
  • Back-to-back-to-back kills by Toni Rodriguez tied the set up and gave the Tigers a 23-21 lead.
  • Tennessee tied the set at 23-23 and the two teams went back and forth until Tennessee claimed the set, 30-28.
  • The Tigers were led in the third set by Rodriguez with six kills. Bannister added five. Cianciulli picked up 11 digs.
  • Tennessee got out to a 4-0 lead in the first set before the Tigers scored on an overpass-kill by Jacqui Armer.
  • The Lady Vols pushed to a 11-4 lead, forcing the Tigers to a timeout. The Tigers took their second timeout of the set at 19-7. Tennessee took a 21-8 lead, but the Tigers got some momentum and went on a 3-0 run, getting kills from Olivia Beyer and Milan Stokes.
  • LSU held off Tennessee for three-striaght match points, including back-to-back kills by Rodriguez.
  • Tennessee claimed the set, 25-15, and the match, 3-1.
  • Beyer led the Tigers in the fourth set with four kills. Cianciulli picked up eight digs.

NOTABLES

– Bannister led the Tigers with 15 kills. This is Bannister’s 18th match in double digit kills this season.

– Rodriguez finished with 13 kills making it her sixth match in double digit kills on the year.

– Cianciulli’s 30 digs tied fourth in program history for digs in a four-set-match. This is her third 30-plus match this season.

– Flory’s double-double of 14 assists and 12 digs is her sixth double-double this season. The double-double marks her fifth in her career.

– Three players finished with double digit digs. (Cianciulli 30, Flory 12, Kampen 10)

– The Tigers out-blocked the Volunteers 13.5-8.0.

FRAN’S FINAL THOUGHTS 

On the positive takeaways from the middle set…

“I thought we fought, but we made it a whole lot harder than we needed to.  I told them at every timeout that if you could see yourself right now on film, you would think oh my gosh what am I doing.  The self-awareness part will be a great learning opportunity for us.  We will learn a lot from this match, there is no question about that.  There is a lot to teach from it.  But we will have to find our personality again.  We made some changes in the line-up putting Toni (Rodriguez) in to be in front of their offense because we knew their blocking would be an issue she did a really good job but everyone else did not come and do their job and that is the bottom line. You have to work and you have to do your job.”

On issues during the middle set of the match…

“I think they played well in the second.  They changed the match-up in the second set and it took us a little while to adjust and we never really got a rhythm against that.  I thought through the third set that we started trusting and had control and fought back again.  But when you play a team that is going to play that hard and you really have to credit them, they fought harder than we did tonight.  You saw the defensive plays that they made and they put pressure on us and we did not fight as hard defensively.  I think that was probably the defining factor and when you do not fight that hard defensively, offense does not come as easy.  I think we gave it our all but we did not get what we wanted so we kind of bailed.”

On changing combinations in upcoming matches….

“We have tried everything we could possibly try but we will continue and never quit.  We will continue to try and find the right combination that is going to turn this thing around and get some wins for us.”

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