As a team progresses through its season, the hope is for the team to always improve with each game.
Each match provides a new set of things that the team might need to work on, a matchup they recognize as something that has to be addressed, a reminder of a weakness that needs to be patched up. Sometimes that might be a matter of technique or a matter of scheme; sometimes it comes down to something deeper than that: mentality.
Last weekend, LSU volleyball took a trip to Wisconsin for matches against the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and Marquette. The games represented LSU’s first time this season playing outside of Baton Rouge, and, as always, an opportunity to get better.
The weekend started off well with a nice win against Milwaukee. Though LSU narrowly lost the first set 22-25, the Tigers went on to take comfortable victories in the next three. It was a good show of resilience, a situation in which the Tigers could have allowed their mistakes to snowball and cost them the match, but where they instead held on and executed.
LSU forced Milwaukee to create out-of-system offense, and on the other side of the ball, the Tigers attacked with great success. Senior Sanaa Dotson was the catalyst, as she came up with 22 kills, her highest mark as a Tiger.
“I think she was hitting close to .000 or right at negative at the end of the first set against UW-Milwaukee. Just in terms of how she competed mentally and got herself back in that match and ended the match with 22 kills and hit .296, that’s pretty darn good,” Head Coach Tonya Johnson said.
LSU managed to notch a victory against Milwaukee, but Marquette, who was ranked No. 23 in the AVCA Coaches Poll at the time and are now ranked No. 19, bested the Tigers in four sets. LSU won the third set, 25-20, and it seemed like it had the potential to make the match interesting. However, Marquette answered back with a dominant 25-14 final set.
“It’s the fastest offense we’ve seen all year long, and it was pretty consistent fast offense. But we didn’t serve them tough enough to get them out-of-system for them to not run that fast offense, so that puts a lot of pressure on your blockers and on your defense overall,” said Johnson.
The game was deflating for the team after an exciting win the previous night, with both games in front of hostile crowds. The coaching staff was interested to see how LSU responded in an away game. They’ll come away from this weekend with a mixed bag.
“We talked about being in a gym where we weren’t gonna have many fans and how we had to create our own energy amongst ourselves. I thought they did that really well on Friday, and I don’t think we created a lot of great energy amongst ourselves on Saturday,” Johnson said.
With the loss to Marquette, LSU’s last two losses have come at the hands of ranked teams, with the prior one coming against then No. 21 Penn State, who has now made its way up to No. 11. However, Johnson says the losses have nothing to do with rankings.
“It’s not about if we’re playing a ranked team or not. It’s about how we compete. And if we compete well from beginning to end, I think we’ll start to see some things go our way.”
LSU’s loss came down to fundamentals: letting easy balls get away from them, unfocused serving, poor transitioning from offense to defense and inconsistent effort. These are not mistakes of ineptitude but rather mistakes of inexperience.
LSU is a good team, but what currently separates it from the great teams is the way the team thinks, according to Johnson. She attributes their mistakes not to lack of the right talent, but to lack of the right mentality.
“I think we have to trust ourselves and believe in ourselves and believe that we belong at that level. And when we start thinking that way and carrying ourselves that way, that’s when you’ll start to see things change.”
As LSU (4-4) heads to the Tulane Invitational with Oregon State and Tulane this weekend and then opens conference play in a loaded SEC next week, it’s clear that the Tigers have work to do to hit the next level, a level they’re fully capable of playing at, though the process of getting there may be long and gradual.
In the meantime, coach Johnson is focused on the short game, getting her players to see what they’re capable of and showing that on the court.
“I don’t care about wins and losses. I care about how we compete.”
That will remain the attitude for an LSU volleyball program that is in the early stages of construction. It’s fair to say they’re in it for the long haul; the winning comes later–now is the important stage of instilling winning habits, of perfecting the all-important mental side of the game.
