LAFAYETTE - The Ragin' Cajuns volleyball was awarded a 3-0 (25-14, 25-5, 25-0) victory over Southern Tuesday evening at Earl K. Long Gym after the Jaguars defaulted the match by refusing to resume play after a jersey number discrepancy was discovered by game officials.
As a result, Louisiana (5-6) saw its four-match losing streak come to a close and its home court win streak extended to five matches. The Cajuns have now claimed 22 of the past 29 matches at Earl K. Long Gym.
After a Michelle Williams kill brought Southern (0-9) within 8-5 in the second set, play was halted when game officials were alerted that Simone Beasley, who wore No. 10 as an outside hitter in the opening set, had switched to No. 2 when she moved to libero for the second set.
By rule a player cannot switch jersey numbers at any point in the match once the lineup sheet has been submitted for the first set (rule 7.1.2.8 of 2012/2013 NCAA Volleyball rule book) - they are allowed to switch different colors when moving to libero, but the jersey number must remain the same.
When the violation is discovered, the player must sit out for the remainder of the current set before being allowed to resume play in the next set.
Southern was instructed by game officials that Beasley would be ineligible for the remainder of the second set and that the Jaguars would have to finish the set without a libero (since player involved in jersey infraction was the libero).
After a conference with game officials and Louisiana head coach Heather Mazeitis-Fontenot, the Jaguars called a timeout. When the clock expired on the timeout, head coach Nathaniel Denu refused to send his squad back on the court.
Southern was issued a red card by the head official, then following a 30 second delay the match was defaulted to Louisiana after the Jaguars persisted with refusal to continue play.
By rule 8.5.3 of the 2012/2013 NCAA Volleyball rule book, if a team refuses to play after being directed to do so and has been warned by the first referee (red card was issued), the entire match is defaulted. According to rule 8.5.1.2, if a match is defaulted after one or more sets have been completed, the defaulting team (Louisiana) retains any sets won and the defaulting team retains any points earned in the set in progress.
All statistics in the match count toward the season totals for both Louisiana and Southern.
At the time of default, Lavinia Tataran led the Cajuns offense with six kills on just 10 attempts with no errors (.600 hitting percentage). Mandi Gavin dished out 15 assists and topped the Cajuns with six digs.
Louisiana was hitting .250 in the match (18 kills, 7 errors, 44 attempts) and had held the Jaguars to a .048 percentage (9 kills, 7 errors, 42 attempts).
UL broke free from a 6-all tie in the opening set - which was the fifth tie of the set - after a ball handling error by Keya Bennett sent the serve to the Cajuns' side of the net.
Tataran then served up nine unanswered points as Louisiana opened a 16-6 advantage and never looked back.
SU would get no closer than nine points the remainder of the opening frame and each time the Cajuns had an answer. After the Jaguars cut the deficit to 23-14 on an Amber Shelby kill, UL received a kill from Tonice White and an attack error on Marisol Macias gave the Cajuns set point.


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