The topic of conversation after the No. 22 LSU volleyball team’s Sunday match against Florida was speed. Speed is what the Tigers pride themselves on, and their fast-paced style has been a trademark of their offense. The lack of that trademark is what caused LSU’s 3-1 loss to No. 6 Florida (11-0, 4-0) on Sunday afternoon in the PMAC. “Our motto is to go fast,” said junior libero Elena Martinez. “We let them control the pace of the match. That threw us off a little and definitely had an impact on the game.” Florida out digged LSU 73-53. Martinez was the only Tiger to post double-digit digs, while five Gators had more than 10 digs. LSU (11-2, 3-1) dropped the first two games of the match, 30-25 and 30-24, but came back to win the third game, 30-27. The Tigers were ahead 15-7 in the fourth game before losing, 30-24. “We didn’t step up and finish the game,” said LSU junior outside hitter Marina Skender. “They played well, but [the loss] was our fault. They didn’t beat us. We just made a lot of mistakes.” LSU committed 13 service errors compared to Florida’s six. LSU coach Fran Flory said that statistic proved to be too much for the Tigers to overcome. “We can’t make this many hitting errors and beat a top-10 team,” Flory said. “We feel like we had opportunities. We were not very tough minded and disciplined in the shots we hit. “The pill we have to swallow is that we probably had a grand opportunity here. We had them on their heels.” LSU has not beaten Florida since 1991. The Tigers finished with four Southeastern Conference losses this past season, and two of those losses were handed down by the Gators. Junior outside hitter Kyna Washington led LSU on Sunday with 14 kills, while sophomore middle blocker Brittnee Cooper added 12 kills and a career-high 11 blocks. Senior outside hitter Marcie Hampton led the Gators with 20 kills. Florida has won 22 straight SEC matches and has not lost a conference match since South Carolina defeated the Gators in September 2006. After the game, Washington said all the talk about what the Tigers could have done to beat the Gators was too little too late. “What happened is what happened,” she said. “Everybody wants to say ‘We should have, we should have,’ but we didn’t. We got sucked into their pace.” Sunday’s loss capped off LSU’s first weekend home series since the end of August. The Tigers played eight straight road matches before they returned home Friday. The Tigers defeated South Carolina, 3-0 in the game. Sophomore Lauren DeGirolamo led LSU with 15 fills in front of the largest crowd in LSU history of 2,308. LSU hits the road again this weekend to face Auburn on Friday and Georgia on Sunday.
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