LSU senior outside hitter Marina Skender gets a first touch on the back row, swiftly glides to her spot on the outside shortly behind the 3-meter line and waits for her number to be called.It isn’t, so she goes up to the net and waits for her chance to get a block, but the opponent moves away from her. She slides back into her attack position, almost cat-like, and her number is called. She pounces on the opportunity and gets the kill.The next play, she serves and gets an ace. The following play, she finally gets that block.It’s all in a day’s work for LSU’s senior outside hitter, who is entering her fifth season at LSU after losing last season to an ACL tear.”She has become so much more physical after her knee injury that she can be a force on the front and back rows,” said LSU coach Fran Flory. “Whereas before she was a finesse player, now she’s got the physical side and the finesse game. And when you have both sides like that, you become a great player.”Skender simply does it all on the court for the Tigers as a “six-rotation player,” meaning she stays on the court during all six rotations. Her team-leading 11 double-doubles this season are proof of her all-around skill.On the offensive side of the ball, the senior is second on the team in kills with 310 this season and has 1,407 for her career, ranking her No. 7 on the career list at LSU.Skender had 3.16 kills per set in her career at the beginning of the season, and her 3.37 so far this season likely will keep her in the top 10 in LSU history in that category.The Zagreb, Croatia, native currently ranks No. 2 on the team in service aces per set with 0.30, a category she led the league in during her 2006 campaign with 0.68 per set.But the senior will be the first to admit her serve doesn’t have the getup it once did before the ACL tear.”I can’t get into the rhythm with my serving,” Skender said. “I don’t feel comfortable with the tossing, but I’m going to keep working on it and see what happens.”Then the 2006 All-Southeastern First Team member will jump back to her defensive stance after a missed kill opportunity or to await the opponents’ serve.Skender is one of nine players in LSU history to record 1,000 career kills and one of five to record 1,000 digs and 1,000 kills in a career.Defensively, Skender hasn’t lost a step from her form in 2007, in which her 3.15 digs per set (with a minimum of 400 digs) ranked No. 7 in program history.”The Croatian Sensation” is No. 2 on the team this season in digs per set with 2.65, and she even stands her own up at the net at 5-foot, 11-inches, with 0.55 blocks per set.Flory said Skender provided great back-row support for the Tigers when the team needed it early in the season.”Marina is the mother hen of the team,” Flory said. “She exudes confidence and empowers the person next to her. She has great leadership skills, and she makes the person next to her believe they are going to make the play.”But it may very well be the little things that don’t go in the stat book which make Skender one of the Tigers’ most valuable players.Flory consistently points to Skender as the glue that holds this season’s team together with her “never say die” attitude, which is contagious among her teammates.”Marina is our go-to player when we are in trouble,” said sophomore libero Lauren Waclawczyk. “Even coming back from her knee injury, she’s come out so strong, and it makes you want to go harder, and it makes you want to drive to be like her.”The Zagreb native has a choice to make at the end of the season about the future of her volleyball career.She said she has plans to play professionally after the season, as she has already graduated with a degree in sports management.”I can’t contact anyone until December when the season is over, but I definitely want to go play somewhere overseas,” Skender said.—-Contact Andy Schwehm at [email protected]