Right about now, Louisiana's Ragin' Cajuns are longing for the green, green grass of home.

It certainly beats Kentucky blue grass.

Coach J. Kelley Hall's Cajuns have had precious little time to recover from Thursday's 53-45 loss at Middle Tennessee before taking on the Western Kentucky Lady Toppers at 7 p.m. today.

Middle defeated WKU in last year's Sun Belt Conference Tournament finals, and the two appear headed for a pair of showdowns this season with equal 5-0 league marks in the Sun Belt Eastern Division.

UL, a 68-58 winner at Florida International on Monday, is 4-2 and tied with South Alabama in the West.

The Cajuns have to get a better start than they did at Middle Tennessee, when they fell behind 28-16 at halftime and could never fully rally.

Poor shooting was one culprit in the defeat as UL made just 17-of-56 attempts from the field (30.4 percent) including 5-of-21 3-pointers. The Cajuns also turned the ball over 25 times, including an alarming 19 in the disasterous first 20 minutes.

Anna Petrakova had 10 points and 12 rebounds under constant attention from the Blue Raiders. She hit just 4-of-11 shots.

But Petrakova's work on the boards led the way to a 45-31 rebounding advantage for the Cajuns and she came up with four blocked shots while playing a full 40 minutes and committing just one foul.

The Lady Toppers ran their current winning streak to eight games in a row with Thursday's easy 83-64 demolition of visiting New Mexico State as a trio of players scored over 20 points _ Crystal Kelly with 22 points and 14 rebounds, Tiffany Porter-Talbert with 22 points and Leslie Logsdon with 21 points.

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Bruce Brown
bbrown@theadvertiser.com