BATON ROUGE, La. — For the second time in three days, Auburn (16-10, 7-8) played a five-set match, this time on the road inside the Pete Maravich Assembly Center. Despite a career-high 24 kills from Lauren Dreves, LSU (13-13, 6-9) came away with the dramatic victory, 3-2 (25-21, 14-25, 22-25, 25-20, 15-12).
Offense wasn’t the issue for the Tigers in the opening frame on Friday. Fresh off a 13-kills performance against Texas, Bel Zimmerman picked up where she left off. The Liberty, Missouri product found four kills on her 12 swings.
Dreves added four of her own and Liz Markovska supplied three more as Auburn hit .243 with three aces.
Despite a 5-0 run to swing momentum in favor of the Orange and Blue, LSU managed a 5-0 rally for themselves and hit .324 to take the first set and the lead, 1-0.
The defense would make strides in set No. 2, but it all started from the service line.
Markovska, Kalei Edson, Kate Mansfield and the rest of the Auburn servers kept LSU out of system all set. At one point, Markovska dialed up a 10-0 run to give her squad a commanding lead. The Tigers would hold LSU to just .025 hitting.
Five Tigers ended in double-figures in digs. Baleigh Carlsen (12) and Sydney Handel (11) both set career highs.
Offensively, the second belonged to Dreves. Eight of her 24 kills on the night came in the second frame alone as Auburn overpowered the home side to even the match at one set apiece.
Steady as ever, the Auburn offense stayed the course in the third stanza. Leaning on both Dreves and Markovska, setters Kalei Edson and Shanelle Puetz orchestrated a hitting percentage of .289 to keep the pressure on.
Dreves, the sophomore from Vancouver, Washington went for a career-high 24 kills and 15 digs for her team-leading eighth double-double of the season. Markovska’s 17 kills and 10 digs were enough for her fifth double-double of the year. Puetz also got in on the double-double party with 21 assists and 11 digs, her seventh of the season.
LSU, however, was not going to go down without a fight.
Turning up the volume on their offensive end, the home side hit .382 in the fourth set. Even though Markovska added six kills and Auburn delivered three big blocks, LSU forced a decisive set five.
Brent Crouch and co. trailing by as many as four in the fifth set. His squad was equally up to the challenge to even the fight.
A resounding block from Markovska and Eden Bower tied the match at 12. LSU found the right maneuvers in the end, though, finding three-straight points to take the set and match, 3-2.
WHAT CROUCH HAD TO SAY
Head Coach, Brent Crouch
“For a lot of reasons, this one hurts. An incredible effort from this group to rise to the challenge both physically and emotionally. Every team in this league is good. I’ve been saying that all season. And I’m including us in there too. We’re all capable of beating each other on any given night. I thought for large portions of the match, we were in control. Certainly, in that second set and most of the third, we were serving well and the setters were doing a great job managing our offense. We just weren’t able to get them off the net enough in the fourth and fifth. With the outsides they have, we needed to get them out of system more often. It was a great fight. I’m proud of this team and how much they left on the floor.”
MATCH NOTES
- Auburn’s 71 digs tied a season high, matching the performance against Vanderbilt on Oct. 10
- Lauren Dreves set a career-high with 24 kills
- Dreves also notched her eighth double-double of the season with 15 digs
- Baileigh Carlsen reached a career-high 12 digs
- Kate Mansfield (5 blocks) has reached five blocks in back-to-back matches
- Bel Zimmerman (13 kills) has reached double figures in back-to-back matches
- Sydney Handel set a career-high with 11 digs
- Shanelle Puetz (21 assists, 11 digs) recorded her seventh double-double of the year
- Liz Markovska (17 kills) reached double figures for the 19th time this season
- Markovska also notched her fifth double-double of the year with 10 digs