University of Louisiana at Lafayette Athletics
Cajuns Back Home at Earl K. Long Gym
10/21/2011 1:01:00 AM | Volleyball
This weekend, Louisiana (10-14, 2-6 Sun Belt) welcomes Western Kentucky and Middle Tennessee to Earl K. Long Gym for a pair of Sun Belt Conference matches.
The Cajuns and Hilltoppers (21-3, 8-1 Sun Belt) meet on Friday, then on Saturday UL faces MT (11-9, 8-1 Sun Belt). Both matches are set to begin at 7 p.m.
Over the course of the weekend the Cajuns are holding their annual DigPink! event in conjunction with October being Breast Cancer Awareness month. Fans are encouraged to wear pink as the team helps raise awareness about breast cancer. Money donated to the Side-Out Foundation will help medical research organizations and entities dedicated to providing compassionate support to breast cancer patients and their families.
Pink ribbons will be distributed to fans making a $1.00 donation both Friday and Saturday.
On Friday, there will be a raffle for a volleyball basket filled with a variety of items including a pink volleyball. On Saturday, fans will get to bid on UL's pink jerseys in a silent auction that begins with the first serve of the first set and ends with first serve of the third set.
The Ragin' Cajuns return home after a five-set victory over North Texas last Sunday which gave the squad a season sweep of the defending Sun Belt West champion. The win was the 10th of the season marking the first time the Cajuns recorded back-to-back, double-figure win campaigns since 2001-02
UL is 5-2 at Earl K. Long Gym this season and was victorious in the last home outing on Sunday, Oct. 2 posting a 3-1 (25-17, 31-29, 23-25, 27-25) win over North Texas.
Senior Lesley Mirarchi continues her climb toward setting the rally scoring era standard for kills. Mirarchi has upped her career kills total to 865, a tally which ranks as the third-most in the rally scoring era. The current rally scoring era kills standard is 927 by Elizabeth Inman (2005-08) and Mirarchi has at least eight more matches to top the mark (needs 62).
Mandi Gavin has posted seven double-doubles in the last eight matches dating back to the start of Sun Belt Conference play on Sept. 23 at South Alabama. In Sun Belt matches Gavin is averaging 1.44 kills, 7.56 assists and 3.41 digs per set.
Gavin currently has 1,917 assists which ranks fifth all-time in program history and needs 83 more to become just the fifth player in program history to notch 2,000 career assists.
WKU has won 18 of its last 20 matches and four straight in the Sun Belt, despite falling in a five-set thriller at Cincinnati on Tuesday.
Junior outside hitter Jordyn Skinner has recorded 12 double-doubles in the first 24 matches of the season. Skinner leads
the team with 309 kills, an average of 3.77 per set. Behind her are senior Lindsay Williams with 2.36 kills per set and redshirt sophomore Paige Wessel at 2.20 and senior Tiffany Elmore with 2.29 kills per set.
Middle Tennessee is currently riding a nine-match winning streak, grabbing a share of first place in the Sun Belt Conference along the way. The Blue Raiders face La.-Monroe on Thursday before visiting Earl K. Long Gym on Saturday.
Ashley Adams paces the Blue Raiders at a clip of 3.97 kills per set (270 kills in 68 sets). As a team, MT averages 13.83 kills pet set and boasts a .261 hitting percentage. Brynne Henderson leads the squad averaging 2.99 digs per set and Oyinlola Oladinni averages nearly one block per set (68 blocks in 69 sets).
-- Ragin' Cajuns --
