LSU volleyball coach Fran Flory and her staff decided to give their team an extra day’s rest last week before the first two matches of a four-game road swing.She said some of her players were looking tired, and she didn’t want to overwork them with the postseason looming.The rest ended up working in the long run, but it was a close call, as the No. 19 Tigers (20-5, 14-2) narrowly escaped Arkansas in five sets.”We played with fire, and we almost got burnt,” Flory said. “The bottom line is I trusted the team, and they did a great job.”If Flory thinks matters got a little hot against Arkansas, the Tigers may as well be playing tonight’s match on the surface of the sun.LSU faces No. 10 Florida (20-3, 14-2) and South Carolina (13-12, 5-11) this weekend on Friday and Sunday to finish out its four-game road trip.The Gators enter tonight’s match against the Tigers on an eight-match winning streak since getting swept by LSU in Baton Rouge earlier in the season. Florida and LSU are also in a tie for second place in the Southeastern Conference, a half match behind conference-leading No. 11 Kentucky.LSU senior setter Sam Dabbs said the victory against Arkansas was important because it not only kept the team in the hunt for the SEC title, but it also kept its momentum going into the match against the Gators. The Tigers have won 13 of their last 14 matches.”Their libero used to be the one who would take every ball on the back row, but now their whole team has gotten better at playing defense,” Dabbs said. “They have also changed up their lineups to where they aren’t making as many substitutions and are relying on a strong six or eight players that come in and out like we do.”While Dabbs had high praise of Florida’s success, Florida coach Mary Wise wasn’t sparse in her admiration of LSU’s recent play in a press conference Monday.”When we played LSU the first time, they played really well,” Wise said. “They could have beaten just about anyone in the country the way they played that night. We hope that we can disrupt that some on our home court.”The biggest challenge of playing against Florida on the road may be in the form of the Gator’s “seventh man” — the O’Connell Center crowd.The Gators recently drew 3,325 fans to a 3-0 sweep of Georgia last Friday. In comparison, LSU’s largest home crowd this season was 1,303 against Tennessee on Sept. 18.But the Tigers aren’t too worried about the crowd being a factor in the match.”We’ve been drawing big crowds everywhere we go, so I think we’re used to it now,” said sophomore libero Lauren Waclawczyk. “It’s just more about our attitude now. We’re not going to let it mess with us because we’re pumped.”The Tigers will then have to turn their attention to an ever-pesky South Carolina team Sunday that has defeated LSU in Columbia, S.C., the past two seasons.LSU got the best of the Gamecocks earlier in the season in the PMAC with a 3-0 sweep, but Flory knows the story may be a little different on the road.”South Carolina at South Carolina is a notoriously difficult match for us,” Flory said. “I don’t know why. We have struggled in that building, but I don’t know if this team will. The focus we have is positive right now, and other times in years past we haven’t been at this point. We’re also a much better road team this year.”—–Contact Andy Schwehm at [email protected]