There is a saying in beach volleyball, “win the third set, win the dual” and LSU won three third sets to win.
The No. 11 LSU Tigers (26-11) won 3-2 against the No. 6 TCU Horned Frogs (29-8)in Gulf Shores to advance to the quarterfinals of the NCAA Beach Volleyball Championship against the No. 3 Stanford Cardinal (32-5) at Noon on ESPN2.
In NCAA beach volleyball, five pairs of two compete on five courts with the team to win three of those courts wins the dual.
To win those courts, pairs must win two sets with the first sets going to first to 21 (or by two if tied at 20) and a possible tie breaking set of 15.
LSU’s 3-2 win (the closest possible in beach volleyball) featured four third sets with all of the Tigers’ points coming in third sets.
In football terms, LSU came from behind in the fourth and won in 3OT. In baseball terms, the Tigers tied in the 9th and blew it open in the 12th inning.
It was a genuine classic.
“Today was amazing,” said head coach Russell Brock in a press release. “It was clear that we would need to play well and commit to battling for the full match. Clearly, we got behind early, but the resolve and commitment were even more clear! You could feel the momentum change halfway through and the Tigers were making a move! I am so proud of how all our pairs fought. There wasn’t one pair that didn’t play the way we train.”
LSU dropped the first and second set on three of the five courts to put in them a whole, but went 1-1 on courts two-five to force third sets
The Tigers did however fall behind 1-0 with the pair of graduate transfer Gabi Bailey and senior Ellie Shank falling 17-21 and 18-21 to TCU’s court one pair that had just three losses on the season.
LSU would manage to tie the Horned Frogs after the court 4 pair of freshman Skylar Martin (the shortest player left in the tournament) and senior Amber Haynes won 17-21, 21-17, and 15-9.
Less than a minute later, the second court pair of junior Parker Bracken and senior Reilly Allred put LSU up 2-1 after winning 21-15, 16-21, and 16-14.
The last two courts were LSU’s two AVCA Top Flight teams which are teams that have played at least 15 matches together and won 75% of them.
TCU managed to beat LSU’s fifth court Top Flight pair of freshman Yali Ashush and senior transfer Emily Meyer 21-17, 16,-21 and 11-15 to tie it.
The game came down to juniors Ella Larkin and Aubrey O’Gorman, the other Top Flight pair.
Larkin and O’Gorman had split the fiercely contested first two sets 20-22 and 23-21.
With the dual tied 2-2, LSU’s fans and played rushed to court three to watch O’Gorman serve with a 14-12 lead that quickly became a 15-12 win to clinch the dual.
The win marked the third time in four years that LSU eliminated TCU and continued the Tigers tradition of having always won at least one game in Gulf Shores.
The Tigers next matchup is a Stanford team that swept them 5-0 earlier this year at home.
Stanford has only lost once to a team other than the top two seeds USC and UCLA. In fact, those three teams are 84-3 against all other teams. However, one of those three losses was a 3-2 win over USC by LSU.
“Stanford is a solid team,” said Brock in a press release. “They’ve earned their seed. There’s no other option for us than to bring the same fight that we had today. We believe that we can beat any team out here, but that belief won’t get the win. We have to implement our game plan well and play with the energy and execution that a top team in the country deserves. Looking forward to a fantastic challenge.”