Arkansas falls at No. 11 LSU Wednesday

Jump to No. 11 LSU box score BATON ROUGE, La. – The University of Arkansas got eight team blocks but couldn’t stop the offensive attack of the No. 11 LSU Tigers in a Southeastern Conference volleyball loss in Baton Rouge, La., Wednesday. The 28-30, 26-30, 26-30 loss was much closer than the scores indicate but the defeat drops the Lady’Backs to 15-10 overall and 8-9 in the SEC while LSU improved to 22-4 and 14-3 in the league. “We played really well for 80% of the match,” said Arkansas head coach Chris Poole. “It’s the 20% of the match that killed us. We had some untimely errors and shot ourselves in the foot.” Redshirt sophomore Christina Lawrence paced the offensive attack for Arkansas hitting .500 with 11 kill and two blocks. Senior Denitza Koleva led the team and the match with 17 kills, 19 digs and three blocks while senior Amy Allison added nine kills, hit .294 and had three blocks. Freshman Catherine Fowler had three blocks for the Lady’Backs as well. LSU had three players in double figures paced by 13 kills from senior Melody Clark. Arkansas had several opportunities in each game as the evenly battled contest featured 30 tied scores and 17 lead changes in three games. The first frame saw Arkansas get a four-point, 15-11, lead but the Tigers stormed back re-taking the lead at 18-17. Arkansas was able to stay close, tying the game at 28 but a ball handling error followed by a big kill from LSU’s Vanessa Freeman gave the Tigers the win. The second game was similar with 16 ties and seven lead changes in the frame. Arkansas trailed by two, 22-20, but put together a scoring run to tie the game at 25. The Tigers then managed a 5-1 run closing the game with the win. The final game again mirrored the first two with the score close with Arkansas trailing, 26-25, late. Unforced errors by the Lady’Backs handed LSU the final frame win. “We’re going back to Fayetteville and regroup before we host Alabama,” said Poole. “This loss makes the Alabama match critical to us getting into the NCAA Tournament.” Arkansas continues SEC action Sunday hosting Alabama in a 1:30 p.m. match in Barnhill Arena. The Lady’Backs celebrate Senior Night in the final home regular season match of the 2006 season.