After a rocky 1-3 start in conference play, LSU volleyball hosted Oklahoma and Texas in the PMAC last weekend.
The Tigers, who head coach Tonya Johnson has repeatedly described as a talented and gritty team, finally proved it in dramatic fashion to go 2-0 on the weekend and level their conference record at 3-3.
Friday’s match against Oklahoma was riddled with LSU mistakes in the first frame, which continued until Johnson lit into the LSU bench during a timeout.
“You don’t wanna know,” Johnson said when asked what she had to say to her team.
Soon after, the Tigers regained their confidence. In the third frame they came back from a 17-10 deficit to defeat the Sooners and eventually won 3-1 for a hard fought and exhilarating result Friday night.
The message from Johnson and her staff to her Tigers last week was about “responding well” when you make mistakes.
“This isn’t an error-free game,” Johnson said.
Johnson called on her team to “woman up” and learn to play freely.
“We wanna just instill confidence in [the players],” assistant coach Kevin Inlow said after the Oklahoma win. “We’re so good, and we don’t want to let youth be an excuse for us, because we are physically capable.”
What Inlow means is that LSU has not been physically outmatched in any one of the matches they have played this year; instead, LSU has stood in its own way, whether that’s been errors on the court, loss of focus or attempts to over-correct for previous errors.
What LSU needed was to take a step forward, be mentally cohesive as a team and know how to win when it’s within its grasp.
Step two in any plan is repeating the success from step one.
After the Oklahoma win, Johnson was well aware that Sunday’s match against Texas A&M was going to be another gutsy battle to the finish.
“The staff has been preparing all week, but it’s a fast turnaround, and so I am looking forward to see how we respond,” Johnson said.
Freshman Lainee Pyles had a huge performance in the win against OU, tallying a season-high 15 kills and hitting over .400 in two of her last three matches.
Pyles had five kills with no errors, and a .833 hitting percentage in the fourth and final set.
“We’ve been working on believing in ourselves and having faith, and when we really believe in ourselves, that we can show people how we play LSU volleyball,” Pyles said.
And Pyles’s strategy to continue success into Sunday’s match?
“We have to remember how this win feels, what we did, how we came back after certain [Oklahoma] points and how we dominated. We’ll be good.”
Another star of the Friday night match was outside hitter and sophomore, Jurnee Robinson.
Robinson went home with 17 kills, three aces, three blocks and eight digs.
Robinson minced no words in regard to finally finding the missing pieces the Tigers had been looking for all season long.
“Honestly, it just feels great,” Robinson said.
Sunday’s match against Texas A&M was a battle from the start. The Aggies took set one 25-14, while the Tigers took set two at 25-18.
The Tigers went up 2-1 on the Aggies after set three with a score of 25-20, but the Aggies, backed into a corner, found a way to win set four, 25-14.
In set five, a first-to-15, winner-takes-all set, LSU defeated Texas A&M 15-10.
Despite the win, Johnson said her team struggled with being “intentional about what we’re doing,” something Johnson says is absolutely vital to her team maintaining consistency.
In addition to a winning a shot-for-shot battle, LSU underclassmen starred all throughout the fifth set, coming up with huge blocks. At one point, LSU had two sophomores and four freshmen on the court.
LSU’s switch into a 6-2 play style and Shea Bruntmyer and AC Froehlich’s double substitution in the fifth set was just what LSU needed to get across the finish line.
The headline this week as LSU heads back to the PMAC for their third straight match is that they are growing up.
With plenty of room to grow, the Tigers are right on track as far as Johnson is concerned.
On Sunday, Oct. 20, we’ll see how the Tigers can fare against an 11-5 but travel-weary Florida Gators.
