The LSU volleyball team lost a four-set match (25-27, 25-20, 20-25, 15-25) to Alabama on Sunday, marking only the second time all season that the team has lost consecutive matches.
The loss comes on the heels of a successful stretch last week in which the Tigers (13-5, 3-3 Southeastern Conference) won three matches in five days including their first three-set sweep of the season against Mississippi State.
LSU coach Fran Flory said that the team’s serving effort is not where it needs to be in order to compete in the grueling SEC and that weakness was made evident on Sunday.
“We set out a goal at the beginning of the season that we were going to be a better serving team,” Flory said. “Our serving this weekend was terrible.”
Whether the team was serving for location or as an attempt to score, the effort was not on par, according to Flory. LSU accumulated 10 serving errors throughout the match and only scored on two serving aces.
On a day where not much was going right for the Tigers, Flory pointed to sophomore outside hitters Katie Lindelow and Cati Leak as bright spots in the team’s performance.
“[Leak and Lindelow] both were very good today,” Flory said. “They did a nice job of bouncing back after subpar performances on Friday and that’s good to see your young players respond like that.”
Leak lead the Tiger offensive effort as she powered home 16 kills for a .366 hitting percentage on the day.
Lindelow turned in a double-double with 11 kills and 17 digs in the match.
“On Friday night, I don’t think the outside hitters did a good job of putting the ball away so tonight we tried to do a better job of that,” Lindelow said. “[Junior setter Malorie Pardo] served up some great balls.”
Sophomore defensive specialist Haley Smith said the team is looking forward to getting back to practice and working hard leading up to the next match.
Smith pointed out that one of the best things about playing in the SEC is always being able to prove yourself against strong competition.
“We’re using this as a learning experience,” Smith said. “We are a great team, and we’re going to be a better team when it comes to the NCAA tournament. We will use this to motivate us for next week.”
The Tigers will return home next week to take on Missouri at 7:00 p.m. Friday in the PMAC.