University of Louisiana at Lafayette Athletics
Louisiana Ragin' Cajuns
East Tennessee State
No. 66 @RaginCajunsMT Hits The Road For A Trio Of Matches
3/1/2019 9:30:00 AM | Men's Tennis
LAFAYETTE – Riding a four-match winning streak, No. 66 Louisiana Men's Tennis (14-3) hits the road for a busy weekend, starting with a visit to Bristol, Tenn., to take on East Tennessee State (6-3, 2-0 SOCON) on Saturday, March 2, before wrapping up the weekend at Prairie View A&M (2-12) with a doubleheader on Sunday, March 3.
The match at ETSU will start at 8 a.m. CT and be held inside at the Bristol Racquet Club due to weather concerns. As for Louisiana's doubleheader in Prairie View, Texas, the first match is set to start at 10 a.m. with the second match scheduled to get going at 1 p.m.
NATIONAL RANKING: For the second straight season, Louisiana joined the Oracle/ITA National Rankings, coming in this past week at No. 66 after getting off to its best start since a 13-4 start to the 2014 season. It became the sixth time in the past 10 seasons that Louisiana has earned a national ranking, and the 18th time in program history that Louisiana has earned a national ranking.
HEB CHAMPIONS: The last time Louisiana was in action, was at the 53rd Annual HEB Tournament of Champions held in Corpus Christi, Texas. Louisiana swept the competition to come away as the winners of the tournament for the first time in nine years.
Louisiana opened the weekend with a 4-0 win over DePaul on Feb. 22, before coming away with a highly competitive win over UTSA, 4-3, late in the day on Feb. 22 to clinch a spot in the final. The final was a conference preview match, with Louisiana matching up with Troy on Feb. 23, and Louisiana will crush the Trojans, coming away with a championship winning 4-1 victory.
BEST WINNERS IN THE SUN BELT: Junior Jamie Fraser and senior Arthur Libaud have both been winners on the court, with each dominating the competition over Louisiana's first 17 matches. Fraser, who leads the team in singles wins, sits at 12-1 while Libaud is right behind Fraser boasting a 11-2 record in singles.
That puts Fraser and Libaud one and two in the Sun Belt Conference in total singles wins, and it is not even close with Libaud and Fraser the only two with double-digit wins. Fraser has gotten his wins primarily at No. 4 (4-0) and No. 5 (5-1) singles while Libaud has primarily sat at No. 3 (4-1) and he has gotten a few matches at No. 4 as well going 4-1 in that spot.
DOUBLES RANKING: The team is ranked, and so is one of Louisiana doubles pairings, with Libaud and junior Pearse Dolan carrying a No. 53 national ranking. They earned that ranking by taking down Northern Arizona's duo of Tim Handel and Ruben Montano, who at the time had a No. 27 national ranking, 6-3, on Feb. 16.
WHAT THE BUCS BRING: East Tennessee State enters the match with Louisiana having won its past three straight matches, including the last two being on the road. The last two matches were conference matches for the Bucs, with ETSU taking down UNCG, 7-0 and Wofford by the same score of 7-0.
This is the first time that Louisiana and ETSU will meet on the court since 2013, a 4-2 win for then nationally ranked No. 72 ETSU in Columbus, Ohio. This makes Louisiana's trip to Johnson City the first in at least 15 years.
WHAT THE PANTHERS BRING: After losing its first 12 matches to start the season, Prairie View A&M enters its match with Louisiana on a two-match winning streak, having taken down Texas at Tyler, 4-3, on Feb. 17 and Mississippi Valley State, 5-1, on Feb. 24. The matches against Louisiana will be the first two of a five-match home stretch for the Panthers, with Lamar coming in for a doubleheader and Bucknell making the trip to wrap up the stretch.
This is the third straight season that Louisiana and Prairie View A&M will meet on the court, and the sixth/seventh matches against each other since 2012. Since that 2012 season Louisiana is 5-0 against the Panthers and have not dropped a point in any of those matches, and the trip to Prairie View A&M will be the first for Louisiana since 2012.
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