Louisiana Sweeps No. 18 Rice for Ranked Road Victory

[NewsCopy]

The Louisiana Ragin' Cajuns Volleyball team captured the program's first ranked win in 10 years – and the first Top 20 win of the century (and rally scoring era) – with a resounding straight sets sweep (25-17, 25-22, 25-19) win over No. 18 Rice on Tuesday, August 29 at Tudor Fieldhouse.


Louisiana (3-1) out-hustled the host-Owls (2-1) with a swarming defense that kept several plays alive and forced them into numerous costly attack errors, limiting Rice to a paltry .060 hitting percentage and 24 attack errors on 117 attempts.

The one-two punch of Shyia Richardson's 12 kills and Celeste Darling's nine kills paced a Cajuns offense that generated 37 kills on a crisp .248 hitting percentage.

The all-around effort resulted in Louisiana claiming the first ranked win of the Kristi Gray era and the program's first since October 2013 vs. WKU at Earl K. Long Gym.

HOW IT HAPPENED
It was the defense pressuring Rice into three straight attack errors to set the tone early in Set 1, opening an 8-4 lead. The Owls rallied to take a 10-9 lead, but Cami Hicks punctuated a role reversal with a kill and block to expand the Cajuns lead to 15-11.

Richardson took charge after Rice closed within 17-15, tooling the block out for a key side out, getting a touch call to make it 21-16 and netting set point with back-to-back scores from the back row.

Darling tapped a shot over the block for the fifth consecutive winner as Louisiana erased an early deficit in Set 2 and broke free for a 9-5 advantage. Later it was Richardson scoring to spark a quick three-point spurt that put UL comfortably ahead 16-9.

Rice made a late push in an attempt to even the match, cutting the UL lead to 24-22 after an Emilia Weske kill. The Owls efforts to force extra point was spoiled by an unsuccessful challenge that gave Louisiana set point and the 2-0 match lead.

The Ragin' Cajuns landed the first three points of the third set and never looked back, quickly sprinting out to an 11-4 lead capped off by a block from Richardson and Kara Barnes. Down the stretch it was Darling tooling the block once again to provide additional breathing room at 21-17.

INSIDE THE NUMBERS
Richardson continued her season-opening streak of consecutive matches with double-figure kills and was one dig shy of a double-double.

Freshman libero Kennedy Gustafson led the way with 14 digs. She was joined in double digits by Siena DeCambra who added 13 digs to the 27 assists she handed out.

Hicks led the group effort on the front line with a pair of blocks and also served up a pair of aces.

UP NEXT FOR LOUISIANA
The Ragin' Cajuns early season travels take them to Lubbock, Texas for the Red Raider Classic hosted by Texas Tech at the United Supermarkets Arena from Friday-Saturday, September 1-2.

Louisiana begins play in Lubbock on Friday at 4:30 p.m. against Texas A&M-Commerce, then concludes the visit playing a Saturday doubleheader with matches against Wyoming at 11:30 a.m. and Texas Tech at 7:00 p.m.

All matches in the Red Raider Classic will be streamed on ESPN+. Live stats can be accessed at CajunStats.com

Louisiana Athletics
RaginCajuns.com
PRESS RELEASE

[RaginDave]

Had you told me that the vb team would be 3-1 with a win over a ranked team and a near win be miss state and the soccer team would be 3-0-1 before the season. I would have told you, you were nuts.

[Turbine]

These girls are good, and Louisiana gives their product away.

[Swamp]

uhh, roger that.

I pulled up the espn+ and there were Rice and the Cajuns. Hit it and Cajuns won Match? 3, nevertheless, is was a best of 5 and Cajuns won all three. What was interesting though is they said its only the 2nd time since 2018 that the Owls have lost @ home.

Thats a Statement Win.

[DieHard 1280]

WOW. Great job, Cajuns!

[CajunVic]

. . . these girls are good . . .

[JayWalker]

If this continues, it'll be quite an atmosphere on the 14th when they finally return home.

[Grantvb]

Texas Tech and LSU stand in our way.

[RaginDave]

Texas Tech and LSU stand in our way.

Let's not get too cocky, we have 10 more out of conference games including some relatively tough ones vs:

A 3-0 Wyoming team
A Big 12 Texas Tech Team
A SEC LSU Team
An undefeated 3-0 Charlotte team that beat conference foe Covid Carolina

I do believe these and possibly other teams like maybe an unknown North Florida team who has only played West Coast teams so far, could be challenges. But as you have said for the most part, we should be favored in most every game we play with the exception of the LSU and Texas Tech games.

[ragin50]

Let's not get too cocky, we have 10 more out of conference games including some relatively tough ones vs:

A 3-0 Wyoming team
A Big 12 Texas Tech Team
A SEC LSU Team
An undefeated 3-0 Charlotte team that beat conference foe Covid Carolina

I do believe these and possibly other teams like maybe an unknown North Florida team who has only played West Coast teams so far, could be challenges. But as you have said for the most part, we should be favored in most every game we play with the exception of the LSU and Texas Tech games.

Neither TSAB nor Texas Tech are ranked, according to the schedule. It's also curious that the match in Refineryville is at 11:00am on a Wednesday.

[RaginDave]

Neither TSAB nor Texas Tech are ranked, according to the schedule. It's also curious that the match in Refineryville is at 11:00am on a Wednesday.

None of these opponents with the exception of last night vs Rice were ranked, that does not mean they still won't be tough. LSU was picked ahead of MSU in the SEC preseason rankings.

I did find it interesting that the announcer last night said that we were playing without our best right outside hitter (Lauryn Hill who is out with injury) and she was being replaced by one of our Left Outside hitters (Celeste Darling) and Celeste played fantastic last night. I don't know the status of Hill (coming back), but man if she would come back before conference play, this team could even be better, depth wise.

[CajunNation]

Great job Lady Cajuns!!!!

Man, this program is FIYA