Instead of practicing on the traditional hard court to prepare for its spring tournaments, LSU’s volleyball team has been training on a more comfortable and therapeutic surface — the beach.The Tigers practice the entire fall season on the hardwood of the auxiliary gym of the PMAC, which is less forgiving and more bruising on the lower body compared to the softness of the sand, so they use the spring as a way to get out of the gym and onto the sand.The beach training seems to be working so far, as the Tigers took six of the eight sets they played in the Rice Spring Tournament during the weekend.The Tigers played two set matches against four teams with no deciding sets.LSU lost a set to Stephen F. Austin and SMU but swept TCU and Rice, an NCAA tournament team last season.”The whole day I experimented with lineups, and I would say 90 percent of the reason we lost the two sets we lost was because I put people in positions that they were not accustomed to playing in or maybe had never played,” said LSU coach Fran Flory.Flory said she experimented with lineups to teach the Tigers to have more “volleyball savvy” on the court in the fall.”Part of the goal for the spring is to be able to adapt and to focus on the task at hand instead of focusing on, ‘Who is next to me?’ or, ‘Am I in the right spot?” Flory said. “I want them to be more adaptable … and for the most part, they did a great job.”The Tigers took only seven players who will be on the team next year because of various injuries. Former Tiger Elena Martinez joined the team as a safety net to make sure the Tigers had enough healthy players to compete.The return of rising senior outside hitter Marina Skender, who had not played since the end of the 2007 season after injuring her ACL during spring practice in 2008, was another positive to the weekend’s tournament.Dabbs said the Zagreb, Croatia, native did an amazing job in her return.”You couldn’t even tell that this was her first tournament back,” Dabbs said. UPCOMINGFlory has her team practicing at a local beach volleyball facility, thanks to the emergence of the Southeastern Conference Beach Tournament, which started last year.The beach tournament this season isn’t until April 18, but Flory said the team already looks better on the beach now than during last spring’s beach practices.”The first few days this spring were head and shoulders above the first few days last spring,” Flory said. “We’re actually doing drills and playing at a level from the start that we finished at last spring. They enjoy it, and they want to be good at it now.”LSU rising senior Samantha Dabbs, who transferred from Louisville, said this season marks her first time competing at a college level on the beach.”It’s a lot of fun,” Dabbs said. “It’s a completely different game and a totally different mindset.”Dabbs also said it helps get the team in shape because of the difficulty of playing in sand compared to playing on the hard wood.”It really picks up your game on the court,” she said. “You feel like you are jumping higher and getting to the ball faster when you get on the court, so it’s a great training tool.”The Tigers will have to wait to start their spring break until Sunday, as they will be competing in a Houston tournament this weekend hosted by the Texas Tornados, a club team that former Tiger Kyna Washington played for in high school.—-Contact Andy Schwehm at [email protected]