Oct. 25, 2015
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BATON ROUGE, La. - Auburn and LSU went five sets for the third time in the last four meetings, but this time it was LSU emerging with a wild 3-2 win (22-25, 25-19, 27-29, 33-31, 11-15) Sunday afternoon at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.
In a match that featured 53 ties and 20 lead changes, Auburn (12-8, 4-4) and LSU (9-11, 5-4) played tough defense and fought off multiple set- and match-point tries on both sides throughout the match.
Sophomore Courtney Crable matched a career-high with 20 kills on the night, hitting .212. She also had nine digs, a season-best. Sophomore setter Alexa Filley was two assists shy of a career-high with 61, and she had a career-high 24 digs. Filley's 61 assists are tied for 13th-most in program history in the rally era, second-most in the 25-point scoring era.
Three Auburn players tallied 20 or more digs - Filley with 24, sophomore libero Jesse Earl also with 24, and Brenna McIlroy with 21. McIlroy picked up her eighth double-double of the year with 15 kills.
Junior Emily Klitzke recorded 15 kills, and junior Stephanie Campbell hit a team-best .417 with 12 kills. McIlroy and Breanna Barksdale led Auburn with four blocks apiece.
As a team, Auburn hit .208 for the match, just the second time for the Tigers to fall when hitting .200 or better this season. LSU was even in the hitting department at .208 themselves. Auburn had 109 digs in the match, the second-most in program history (rally era); the record is 112 on Nov. 15, 2013, also at LSU. Auburn had 75 kills to LSU's 66, and LSU finished with 13 blocks to Auburn's nine, but the teams combined for 34 service errors.
Gina Tillis led LSU with 19 kills, and Olivia Beyer had six blocks. Libero Haley Smith had 39 digs.
Set one featured 12 ties and three lead changes, but Auburn maintained a slim lead most of the way and was ahead 21-19 late in the game. But LSU closed the set on a 6-1 run to take the opening game, 25-22. Klitzke had five kills to lead Auburn in the opening set.
Auburn then fell behind early in set two as LSU jumped out to a 7-3 lead. From there, Auburn went on a 5-0 run to take the lead, then after trailing 10-9, went on a 10-3 run to pull ahead and never look back. Auburn hit .306 in set two with just three errors on 36 swings.
Set three saw Auburn take a 23-19 lead but LSU fight back to tie things up. From there, the teams traded leads several times before LSU pulled out a 29-27 lead to take a 2-1 lead in the match.
The fourth set would also head to extra points - lots of extra points. In a set that saw 19 ties and 10 lead changes, Auburn got two big kills from Crable and Klitzke down the stretch to take a 33-31 win and force a deciding fifth set. It was the longest set in an Auburn match since the same score in the third set of a loss to South Florida last season.
Set five, however, was all LSU as they jumped out to a 10-5 lead and never let Auburn get any closer than three points. LSU hit .235 in the set and forced Auburn into six attack errors and three service errors.
Auburn will be back in action on the road Friday night as they travel to Fayetteville, Ark., to take on the Arkansas Razorbacks. Match time is set for 7 p.m. at Barnhill Arena.
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