BATON ROUGE – LSU Volleyball’s Raigen Cianciulli earned SEC Defensive Player of the Week and Karli Rose was named SEC Setter of the Week following two matches hosting Arkansas last week, the league office announced Monday afternoon.
This is the fourth time Cianciulli, a senior, has earned SEC Defensive Player of the Week. As a sophomore, this is the first time Rose has earned an SEC Weekly Honor.
The Tigers split the set of matches with the Razorbacks. After falling in four sets on Thursday, LSU responded and picked up a four-set victory on Friday. LSU is back in action at home on Saturday and Sunday to host Ole Miss. The first serve will be at 1 p.m. CT both days.
In the Tigers’ first match hosting the Razorbacks, Cianciulli became the LSU Digs Queen. In the second set during Thursday’s match, the senior from Spring, Texas moved into the No. 1 spot on LSU’s all-time dig’s list. With 17 digs on Thursday and a season-high 19 on Friday, Cianciulli sits at 1,602 career digs. She averaged 4.50 digs per set in the series split.
“Raigen is one of the all-time greats – we’ve said it all along,” head coach Fran Flory explained. “For her to finally get that record and to get it at home is even mor impactful for her. Raigen just makes plays. I’ve said it all along – she makes the hard play all the time and she makes the easy play most of the time. She’s just a gamer. She’s a competitor and she’s going to fight for every touch.”
Rose was all over the court throughout both matches for the Tigers, pacing the offense and providing sets that were easy for her hitters to handle and kill. She averaged 12.12 assists per set over both matches. On Friday, Rose had 54 assists, one shy of a tying her career-high. She also had 13 digs Friday’s that match for her fourth double-double of the season.
“Karli had a great weekend,” Flory said. “She really led our time as a quiet leader. She just was assertive and she delivered and she made good decisions and created for our hitters. It was probably her best performance up to this date this year. I’m excited to see her take that step.”