BATON ROUGE – The No. 11 LSU Beach Volleyball team went 2-2 at the Death Volley Invitational at the LSU Beach Volleyball Stadium. The Tigers defeated No. 4 USC and No. 9 Long Beach State.
The Sandy Tigs are back on the road for their final road trip of the regular season to Tallahassee, Florida for the Unconquered Invitational, April 5-6. LSU will face No. 7 FSU, No. 8 Texas, No. 15 FAU, South Carolina, and South Florida.
“The tournament was really important for us as a program season,” said head coach Russell Brock. “We played well both days and came out with two really big wins. There wasn’t a team that we stood across the net from that we weren’t able to go toe-to-toe with and compete with. The thing I’m most proud of is that for the last three weeks we’ve been able to say that we played better as a group than we have yet this year. The wins are an easy way to measure our improvement, but the most important truth of who we are and what we’re doing is that we can commit to continuing to get better week after week.”
LSU faced No. 5 Stanford Saturday morning, falling 3-0 in a match played to decision. Tatum Finlason and Kate Baker fell on Court 4; 12-21 and 9-21. Elle Evers and Camryn Chatellier lost Court 3; 15-21 and 14-21. Aubrey O’Gorman and Julia Sprecher fought hard in extra points but ultimately fell on Court 2; 21-23 and 21-23. Courts 1 and 5 went to three sets but the games were unfinished due to the match being played to decision.
“We got amazing performances from every pair in the lineup this weekend,” said Brock. “It wasn’t just our team as a whole that grew, but the individual players and pairs all gained valuable confidence and experience to make us better moving forward. I also can’t say enough about Jon and our operations staff, Alexis, our managers, Mark on the mike, all of our support staff, the VBTV crew and talent and the coaches and players from the other programs who worked hard and stayed flexible to get our matches all completed! The competition through the whole weekend was as deep and talented as I’ve seen in one space in a long time. I’m proud that we all could work together to put on such a fantastic event.”
Stanford (3) LSU (0)
- Gabi Bailey/Parker Bracken (LSU) vs. Avery Jackson/Brooke Rockwell (Stanford) 18-21, 21-17 GAME UNFINISHED
- Ruby Sorra/Taylor Wilson (Stanford) def. Aubrey O’Gorman/Julia Sprecher (LSU) 23-21, 23-21
- Chloe Hoffman/Kelly Belardi (Stanford) def. Camryn Chatellier/Elle Evers (LSU) 21-15, 21-14
- Charlotta Bell/Daria Gusarova (Stanford) def. Kate Baker/Tatum Finlason (LSU) 21-12, 21-9
- Emily Meyer/Skylar Marting (LSU) vs. Clara Stowell/Logan Tusher (Stanford) 16-21, 21-18 GAME UNFINISHED