“It was a huge disappointment,” head coach Tonya Johnson said of her team’s 1-3 loss to Southeastern Louisiana on Sunday, Sept. 10.
“I was disappointed in the way we responded to their intensity. I didn’t think we were ready to compete. Just flat, right out the gate.”
LSU allowed Southeastern to tee off for a .321 hitting percentage, as its offense met little to no resistance. Defensive lapses hindered LSU, whose offensive performance with a .271 hitting percentage and three players with over 10 kills was more than good enough to win if not for its problems on the other end.
The loss put LSU at 3-4 three weekends into the season. Last season, they were 4-4 at this point. Though this start has been, as Johnson said, disappointing, it isn’t significantly worse than last year’s: There’s still plenty of hope for the Tigers to make a repeat appearance in the NCAA Tournament.
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The goal, though, is not to tread water and match last season’s performance. The goal is to exceed it, with most of last year’s core back with another year of experience and dynamic additions in transfer Jade Demps and freshman Jurnee Robinson joining the team.
For that reason, LSU’s early performance, with losses to UCLA, Northern Iowa, Creighton and now Southeastern, leaves something to be desired, especially on the defensive end. LSU has surrendered the highest hitting percentage in the SEC so far this season.
Some of that is due to roster turnover on the back end, with libero Erin Carmichael new to the team and dealing with a degree of inconsistency.
“We’re working on getting her more disciplined, just being stopped and making better reads, and I think that’s going to come with time,” Johnson said.
However, for the most part, Johnson thinks that the back row’s job has been made more difficult by LSU’s struggles blocking up front.
“It’s been our Achilles’ heel,” Johnson said.
A blocker’s job on defense isn’t just to come up with highlight reel blocks; it’s to make the back row defenders’ jobs easier. The blockers can get a hand on the ball to slow it down or cover an angle to limit the amount of space a back row defender needs to cover.
In short, the blockers and back row defenders work in tandem, and LSU’s blocking has had fundamental issues to this point.
“We need to become more aggressive blockers. Our middles need to close so that we have four hands up. Most importantly, we need to take away the space that we’re supposed to take away so our second and third lines of defense can play behind it,” Johnson said.
LSU finished last year allowing the fifth-lowest hitting percentage in the SEC, and its defense was the driving force of its successful year. The Tigers know they have to get back to that level if they want to compete when SEC play comes around.
As the team attempts to right the ship, lots of focus going forward in practice will be on LSU’s defensive fundamentals, communication and positioning.
For all the focus on the Tigers’ defensive issues, LSU’s offense has had its problems, too. With the introduction of Demps, Robinson and even Angie Lee, the freshman middle blocker who’s seen extensive time with Alia Williams dealing with an injury, the offense has far more options and looks more fluid than it did at any point last year.
Still, all the new pieces have led to some growing pains. There have been many plays this year where the offensive process is excellent: the set is good, the hitter gets a good look and the attack just misses out of bounds. As a result of all the new weapons, LSU’s doing a better job than ever of finding openings for its hitters, but it hasn’t always finished those looks off accurately.
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Johnson isn’t concerned about that. She knows that accuracy and consistency will come with time.
“I’m okay with the process, because eventually they’re going to get it. At least I know they’re thinking it, and, more importantly, they’re seeing it,” Johnson said. “It’d be one thing to hit that shot out and not process. I can say, ‘hey, what were you trying to do?’ and they can tell me exactly what they’re trying to do.”
Overall, the approach on offense has led to a lot of early success, but much of that success has come independent of star outside hitter Sanaa Dotson. Dotson, who was among the SEC’s best in kills last year, has struggled with only 57 kills through six matches on .189 hitting efficiency compared to .206 last year.
“She’s just being passive on her approach speed, being early on the out-of-system stuff. Just trying to get her to be more patient,” Johnson said, adding that Dotson’s mistakes in technique have made it more difficult to put power into her swings.
As a result of Dotson’s troubles, Robinson has taken the reins as the team’s lead hitter, displaying outstanding skill as a freshman and ranking an astonishing third in the SEC in kills per set. However, there’s no friction or resentment resulting from that shift; Dotson is instead focused on bouncing back.
“Everybody’s happy with the success that Jurnee’s having,” Johnson said. “Sanaa embraces that, and we’ll get her back to where she needs to be, where she’s right there with [Jurnee], getting kill after kill.”
If Dotson can get back to the elite level that she’s capable of, she’ll form a scary tandem on offense with Robinson. As with the defensive end, it’s just a matter of fundamentals.
As LSU wraps up its non-conference schedule with three games this weekend at the SMU Invitational against Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, Texas Tech and SMU, those fundamentals will be under a microscope on both ends.
