Road victories in Starkville, Miss., and Athens, Ga., winners of six of their last seven and a weekend matchup against the Gators.Sound familiar?It seems LSU’s volleyball team has been mimicking its football counterpart in terms of on-field success. However, its recent four road victories in the last two weekends have been more dominating for the volleyball team, as the Tigers dropped a mere one set in the four matches.That has LSU coach Fran Flory and her players happy about where they stand this season.But Flory sees more room for improvement — especially on one side of the ball.”We need to play better defense,” Flory said. “We played very good defense against Tennessee. It’s all about attitude and pursuit — it’s a relentless approach to not letting the ball hit the ground.”LSU will have to play great defense this weekend when South Carolina (10-6, 2-5) and No. 6 Florida (12-2, 6-1) come to the PMAC to face the Tigers (11-4, 5-1).Last season, LSU went 1-3 against South Carolina and Florida with its sole victory coming in five sets at home against South Carolina.LSU sophomore middle blocker Michele Williams knows her team will have to keep the intensity high to escape with a pair of home victories against the pair of formidable opponents.She said the team has been on a roller coaster ride this season in terms of keeping its preparedness up to a proper level.”We have a tendency if somebody makes a bad play to go down and then have to try to go back up, and sometimes we just bury ourselves,” Williams said. “If you want to be great, you have to be consistent.”The Gamecocks will come into Baton Rouge as the best digging team in the Southeastern Conference, averaging 16.92 digs per set through Sunday.LSU junior outside hitter Angela Bensend said the team will have to focus on not allowing South Carolina’s scrappy play on defense affect LSU offensively.”As hitters, we can’t get frustrated with them digging every ball,” Bensend said. “We just have to keep going at it. Their job is to keep us making errors, but if we take care of our side, we will put the ball away.”The Tigers will then face the Gators on Sunday afternoon, marking the Tigers’ third matchup against a top-10 opponent this season. LSU lost both previous matches in five sets against Nebraska and Stanford.The match against Florida is scheduled for a 6 p.m. first serve Sunday, which is about four hours later than a normal Sunday match, as ESPNU will televise the match.It will be the second time this season the Tigers will face an opponent at home on ESPNU. The first match didn’t end so smoothly for the Tigers, as the team was swept by Kentucky, 3-0.Williams said she doesn’t believe it was the live broadcast that got to the team’s nerves.”We just weren’t on that day. We didn’t prepare properly,” the sophomore said. “This time we will be prepared to play this weekend. TV or no TV, we will be ready.”- – – -Contact Andy Schwehm at [email protected]