The LSU women’s volleyball team fell in straight sets to Texas A&M on Wednesday night.
The Tigers (15-9, 5-7 Southeastern Conference) couldn’t dig themselves out of an early two set hole, something they did in the last meeting against the Aggies (15-10, 6-7 SEC) in a five-set victory in College Station in October.
“I thought it was truly a battle of not very good volleyball in the first two sets,” said LSU coach Fran Flory. “We really could just never quite grab control over it and seize the momentum.”
The sloppy play in the match was disappointing after the Tigers had taken major steps forward over the weekend against Georgia and Kentucky, Flory said.
The Tigers were dominated in the match by Texas A&M sophomore middle blocker Shelby Sullivan. She led the Aggies with 15 and finished the night with a .609 hitting percentage. Sullivan had a similar dominating performance against the Tigers in the match on Oct. 9, smacking 11 kills in the LSU victory.
The Aggies were able to dominate by playing relatively mistake free. During the first matchup between the two teams, the Aggies finished with 30 errors, yet they were able to hold the mistakes down to 13 in Wednesday’s match.
“I said before the match that this was going to be won on our side or their side,” Flory said. “And they managed themselves a lot better than we did tonight. We didn’t execute one thing from the game plan we implemented in practice yesterday.”
Freshman middle blocker Briana Holman continued to be a bright spot for the Tigers. The towering freshman was LSU’s best offensive player on the night, finishing the night with 11 kills and a .346 hitting percentage, both of which led the team.
But the Tigers weren’t able to get the ball to Holman in good spots, which led to only 26 attempts on the night, Flory said.
Junior setter Malorie Pardo said the Tigers need to do a better job of putting their hitters in positions to succeed in order to win going forward.
“We just need to wash this game away, things like this happen,” Pardo said. “This is the first game so far where we just haven’t had it.”
Sophomore outside hitter Helen Boyle continued to improve for the Tigers. After barely playing in the last match against Texas A&M, Boyle was one of the offensive and defensive leaders for LSU on the night. Boyle was second on the team in kills with nine and also led the team in digs.
While Boyle came close to a double-double, Flory said there are still things for the young Tiger to improve on going forward.
“[Boyle] did a pretty good job offensively, we weren’t passing well so she wasn’t getting very good opportunities,” Flory said. “But I don’t think she had a very well-rounded match, I thought she put a few balls away, but I didn’t think we were very good blocking and we didn’t handle the first ball very well.”
The Tigers continue their season Nov. 15 in a rematch against SEC foe Auburn, who defeated LSU on Oct. 18 in four sets on its home court.

Gallery • 5 Photos

Charles Champagne

Texas A&M sophomore middle blocker Sullivan kills one past LSU outside hitter sophomore Cati Leak Wednesday, Nov.13, 2013 during the Tigers' loss to the Aggies.