University of Louisiana at Lafayette Athletics
UALR Brings Cajuns Season To An End
11/21/2002 12:00:00 AM | Volleyball
Thursday, Nov. 21, 2002
MIAMI - For the first time in four years, UL Lafayette's Ragin' Cajuns volleyball team failed to advance to the semifinals of the Sun Belt Conference Tournament.
The Cajuns (15-14) were issued an abrupt exit from the 2002 SBC Tournament here Thursday afternoon at Golden Panther Arena as fourth seed Arkansas-Little Rock handed fifth seed Louisiana-Lafayette a 3-1 (30-26, 20-30, 28-30, 22-30) loss in both squads tournament-opening match.
UL Lafayette had advanced to the tournament semifinals the past three seasons and defeated UALR 3-1 last season to reach the semis. The Trojans (14-12) returned the favor Thursday. Ironically, in 1998, the last time the Cajuns failed to reach the semifinals, it was UALR who eliminated the Cajuns 3-0.
Louisiana-Lafayette's season comes to a close and so does the career of seniors and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, natives Clarice Laires and Priscilla Lima.
UALR advances to the semifinals on Friday and will face top seed Western Kentucky at 4 p.m. (CST).
The Cajuns were plagued with 37 attack errors, 13 service errors, 10 reception errors, three ball-handling errors and attacked .074 for the match. Sophomore outside hitter Stacey Cole led all Cajuns with 16 kills. Lima collected a team-best 17 digs.
2002 SBC Freshman of the Year Ivana Kuzmic keyed the Trojans attack with a tournament record 15 blocks. Kuzmic matched her output from the previous meeting this season between the two schools. UALR had 17 total blocks to only four for UL Lafayette.
Ivana Vracar led all Trojans with 16 kills and Kuzmic added 12 kills to her block tally. Bojana Vulin led the UALR defensive charge with 15 digs. The Trojans had three players in double-digit digs.
The Cajuns jumped out to an early 1-0 lead with a 30-26 win in game one. UALR went on to win the match by taking the final three games.
With the loss, the Cajuns end the season on a two-match losing streak, but did finish out the season with wins in nine of the last 12 matches for their third straight winning season. The winning season was the first of head coach Becky Madden's collegiate coaching career.
CAJUN DIGS: Senior Clarice Laires ended her senior season with 275 kills to up her career tally to 1,277, good enough for third all-time in school history…Laires ended her career with 306 block assists, second on the career charts…Fellow senior Priscilla Lima ended her career with 1,187 digs which places her fourth in school history and her 1,228 career kills are the fifth-most ever…Of the Cajuns 15 wins this season, 10 of them came in straight sets…UL Lafayette is now 4-8 all-time in SBC Tournament matches and 17-28 in games played…The Cajuns finished the season with a 58-50 record in games played and outscored the opposition 2,815-2,662…Laires is a candidate for the 2002 Verizon Academic All-America Team which will be announced Dec. 5.
MATCH SUMMARY
2002 Sun Belt Conference Volleyball Tournament
Louisiana-Lafayette vs. Arkansas-Little Rock
Site: Miami, Fla.
(Golden Panther Arena) Date: Thursday, Nov. 21, 2002
Arkansas-Little Rock 3, Louisiana-Lafayette 1
1 2 3 4
UL Lafayette (15-14) 30 20 28 22
Ark.-Little Rock (14-12)
26 30 30 30
UL Lafayette: Kills 49 (Cole
16, Tough 12, Laires 9); Digs 50 (Lima 17, Henson 8, Bermes, Cole 7); Assists 44
(Henson 39)
UALR: Kills 51
(Vracar 16, Kuzmic 12, Plants, Vulin 7); Digs 63 (Vulin 15, Eisler 14, Hurga
11); Assists 45 (Vulin 15, Eisler 14)
A: 100 T: 1:45
-Ragin' Cajuns-
