The LSU volleyball team didn’t want to go to another five-set match Monday night against Tennessee after losing a heartbreaking five-set match to Kentucky on Saturday afternoon and with a short week of off-time between matches coming up.Senior outside hitter Marina Skender made sure that didn’t happen, knocking home six kills in the final set while accounting for five of the Tigers’ last eight points en route to a 3-1 (25-22, 20-25, 27-25, 27-25) road victory against the Lady Vols.With the victory, No. 20 LSU (16-5, 10-2) swept the season series against Tennessee (15-6, 8-3) and stays one match behind Kentucky in the overall Southeastern Conference standings.”We showed great composure and great poise,” said LSU coach Fran Flory. “It was the best job we’ve done all year in terms of not getting rattled. We focused on executing — we didn’t try to do too much or too little.”Skender was one of three Tiger seniors to record a double-double in the match, as she was joined by fellow outside hitter Lauren DeGirolamo and setter Sam Dabbs.The 18-kill, 15-dig performance was the eighth double-double of the season for the Zagreb, Croatia, native. Dabbs paced the Tigers’ offense with 53 assists and added 11 digs and five kills while DeGirolamo had 12 kills to go along with 16 digs.”This was Lauren’s best match,” Flory said. “She was involved in just about every big play. She had the positive touch [Monday night].”Defensively, the Tigers had five players in double-digits digs, while the team amassed 16 blocks on the evening.”They would contain one person, but you just can’t contain us because we have so many options,” said sophomore libero Lauren Waclawczyk, who had 16 digs in the match. “Our defense was getting a touch on everything no matter where they hit it.”The Tigers held a 14-11 lead in the decisive fourth set before allowing Tennessee to go on a 9-2 run to take a 20-16 lead. But LSU rattled off an 11-5 run to secure the set and the match. Flory said the team did a better job of not playing the decisive set as conservatively as it did in Saturday evening’s five-set loss.”We learned from Saturday afternoon that you can’t play safe,” Flory said. “We tried to do too much Saturday … but [Monday night] we stayed within ourselves and understood our abilities and opportunities and took advantage of them.”The Lady Vols dropped the first set to the Tigers but were able to bounce back with a convincing second-set victory. Junior outside hitter Nikki Fowler’s six second-set kills helped Tennessee dominate the second set from start to finish, taking as large as a seven-point lead.Tennessee outhit LSU in the frame, .278 to .108.”In the first game, we pulled it out in the end, but they had started to come back because of our silly mental errors,” Dabbs said. “In the second game, we carried that over, and they came out fired up.”The third set was a back-and-forth affair until LSU took a four-point lead at 20-16.The Tigers let Tennessee back into the match when the Lady Vols took four of the next five points to get the score a 21-20 in favor of LSU. With the set tied at 25, sophomore middle blocker Michele Williams recorded a kill and teamed with junior outside hitter Angela Bensend for a block to end the set, 27-25.Bensend finished the set with four kills and three blocks, while Williams added on three kills with three blocks.–Contact Andy Schwehm at [email protected]