After a shaky 1-2 start at home, LSU volleyball hit the road to compete in the Flo Hyman Classic, followed by an SEC-ACC showdown at Notre Dame.
In the Flo Hyman Classic, the Tigers faced three opponents: Omaha, San Diego State and Houston. LSU secured the weekend sweep, rallying for a win against San Diego State in yet another five-set thriller and sweeping both Omaha and Houston.
Tuesday, the Tigers swept Notre Dame to extend their win streak to four by limiting the Fighting Irish’s hitting percentage to .143. This is the third consecutive opponent LSU has kept under the .200 hitting percentage mark. In comparison, the Tigers’ offense racked up 45 kills to hit .235 while the defense put down 11 blocks.
Jurnee Robinson and Nia Washington continue to be a dominant outside hitter duo, with the two of them leading on both sides of the net. Across the entire weekend, Robinson led the Tigers with 131 kills, 75 digs, 16 blocks and six aces. Washington followed right behind with 97 kills, 12 blocks and a team-high eight aces.
The Tigers finished their road trip to move to 5-2 overall after four consecutive wins, an impressive step up from the team’s performance the weekend prior.
So what exactly inspired this team’s turnaround on the road?
The answer: reminding themselves that they’re not perfect.
Reflecting on the team’s rough start, head coach Tonya Johnson said she wasn’t disappointed with the way her team played.
The Tigers faced some high-quality opponents early on, and this wasn’t by accident. The team purposely scheduled that way in order to see where they were as a whole and what could be worked on, she said.
“We’re a work in progress, and we weren’t supposed to have it all figured out by the first weekend,” Johnson said. “We’re not even supposed to have it all figured out right now.”
While the Tigers gave themselves numerous opportunities to come out on the other end of the matches against SMU and Baylor, the team just didn’t take advantage of those opportunities at that particular time, she said.
While Johnson isn’t into “moral victories,” LSU’s ability to take a top-10 SMU team to five sets is a clear indicator of the drive and power that this team has. Even with that, every player is still focusing on the small adjustments that need to be made in order for them to come out on the other end.
LSU’s ability to attack from the start and keep a composed mentality is something that Johnson has loved from her team these past four matches, and would like to continue to see as the season progresses.
“One of the things we’ve talked about is keeping our composure and standing poised through the good and bad,” Johnson said. “If we can learn how to ride that out in terms of just standing poised and sticking to our routines and what we do well, we come out on the better end of that.”
Accountability plays a huge role in the culture of this LSU team, regardless of a player’s position. Whether they’re a captain or not, making sure that everyone is upholding the foundation of standards that LSU volleyball has set is what is most important to Johnson.
Moving forward, Johnson’s approach is to make sure her team doesn’t lose their ability to play free. As long as her team continues to be confident in themselves and put their trust in each other, they’ll be able to work through the little things that might have been holding them back, she said.
“We know that rally score volleyball is a game of errors — and we’re going to make errors, we’re not perfect,” Johnson said. “As long as we don’t have that mentality [of needing to be perfect], then we have a chance.”
