The No. 75-ranked Louisiana Ragin' Cajuns Men's Tennis team competes in the Acadiana area for the first time this spring season on Thursday, February 26, facing No. 7 LSU in a 4:00 p.m. match at the Youngsville Sports Complex.
The No. 75-ranked Louisiana Ragin' Cajuns Men's Tennis team competes in the Acadiana area for the first time this spring season on Thursday, February 26, facing No. 7 LSU in a 4:00 p.m. match at the Youngsville Sports Complex.
Why Youngsville. That's stupid
Good to see us back in the top 75 but we’ve got a long way to go
Pretty sure the reason for Youngsville is because the director of tennis there is Bill Bryan who was a tennis star for USL back in the day and he got the matchup. His father, John Bryan, was my junior coach here in Lafayette at Red’s. Three of his four sons; Bill, Vaughn and Boyd, were all excellent players for USL.
Should host them on campus, in fact, I was leaving the baseball game Tuesday night, my bicycle was parked next to the scooters of some members of the tennis team who seemed excited about the win and the energy of the ballpark. One of them made a comment that he wished they would play LSU at Cajun Courts, and at the time I didn't really understand the context, but now it makes sense.
Another reason is they’re learning quickly youth baseball tournaments and pickleball won’t pay all the bills.
The No. 75 Louisiana Ragin' Cajuns Men's Tennis team battled seventh-ranked LSU to the wire in doubles and pushed four singles courts to a decisive third set before falling, 6-1, on Thursday, February 26 at the Youngsville Sports Complex.
I will flat out say this, UL was impressive yesterday vs LSU. I know there is no such thing as moral victories, but UL hung with one of the best teams in the country yesterday and had a chance to win.
The doubles point came down to a tiebreaker which had UL won would have made the score 5-2.
#2 Singles, #3 Singles and #6 singles all came down to a 3rd set, had UL won the doubles point and 2 of the 3 3rd setters, we would have beaten LSU 4-3. Even the #1 and #4 singles that LSU won in straight sets were relatively close. #1 singles were one break of serve in the first set and 6-2 in the second. But Line 4 was 6-4, 6-4. That is about as close as a straight set victory can be.
Point being, is that UL was competitive in every match against a Top 10 team. The rest of the schedule sets up nicely for UL moving forward:
We get Norfolk State this weekend a match we should win.
Next is Troy who has a nice record (8-4) but really has played a terrible schedule.
Then Incarnate Word, who is 5-1, but again they have played a JUCO and 4 SWAC teams.
Then UTSA, who is 0-7, but has played a monster schedule.
Then a 3-9 Alcorn team, who UL has never lost to. All 3 Alcorn wins are vs JUCO teams.
Then Nicholls who has a 4-2 record, but again against terrible competition including a loss to Xavier of New Orleans.
Then South Alabama who has only 2 wins vs 2 SWAC teams.
Then finish the season vs USM who is has wins over SWAC teams only.
Theoretically UL could finish the season if all goes well, 13-4 heading into the SBC tournament, with some nice wins vs Florida Gulf Coast, New Mexico, NMSU and Texas A&M-Corpus Christi.
Our 4 losses have been against:
#7 LSU
#10 UCF
#74 Texas Tech
N/R SMU (who is 8-5)
And in all of these matches we were competitive. This is young team that is only going to get better. We start 4 Juniors and 2 Sophomores. The other team members are made up of 1 Sophomore, 1 Junior and 1 Senior.
There are currently 3 users browsing this thread. (1 members and 2 guests)