The LSU sand volleyball team won both of its matches Saturday, the first day of The Blazer Beach Duals Tournament in Birmingham, Alabama.
The Tigers (8-7) defeated the University of Alabama-Birmingham and UL-Monroe, both by the same score of 3-2.
The team is better than .500 for the first time this season, making its confidence higher than ever.
“One thing I wanted the team to do this weekend was play with confidence,” said LSU coach Russell Brock. “We are playing confident volleyball right now, and we’ll need that throughout the season if we want to meet our ultimate goal”.
The pairs of senior Cati Leak and sophomore Callan Molle and senior Helen Boyle and sophomore Cheyenne Wood swept the Blazers with a pair of two-set victories. Junior Katarina Raicevic and freshman Carli Morris defeated UAB in three sets.
The Tigers carried the momentum over into their match against the Warhawks. Leak and Molle had another strong outing, winning in straight sets, 21-13. Senior Katie Lindelow and freshman Mandi Orellana dropped the first set but bounced back to win the next two and claim the match.
“Our top three played really well for the most part,” Brock said “We had one slip-up in a tight match in the first round that could have very easily made us fold and give in, but we came back for the win against ULM.”
The Tigers did come out on top in both matches today, but that doesn’t mean the team doesn’t have areas it’s looking to improve.
“Prior to this meet, I thought we needed to work on our confidence,” Brock said. “Now it’s more of our serves. We routinely get challenged by other teams serves rather than us challenging them, so we’ve got to get better at that.”
The team has rematches Sunday against Spring Hill and the University of New Orleans, which it defeated at the Tiger Sand Tournament last weekend. The Tigers will try to finish a weekend undefeated for the first time this season.
You can reach Malcolm on Twitter @MalcolmP_TDR.