Louisiana Takes Two In Tournament’s Opening Day

LAFAYETTE, La. – The Louisiana Ragin' Cajuns ran their record to 5-0 on the young season with a pair of wins over Southern Miss and Southern on Friday, the opening day of the Sawyer Camillo Classic at Earl K. Long Gym.

Louisiana swept the Jaguars in its first match of the day, before closing out the evening with a 3-1 victory over Southern Miss, its third win in as many years over the Golden Eagles.

The Ragin' Cajuns will conclude the tournament with a pair of matches on Saturday, at 11:00 a.m. vs Nicholls, and at 5:00 p.m. vs Northwestern State.

Louisiana 3, Southern 0
The Ragin' Cajuns ran their season-opening record to 4-0 with a 3-0 (25-11, 25-12, 25-15) blitz of Southern in Louisiana's opening match of the tournament.

Head coach Heather Mazeitis-Fontenot took the opportunity to use the majority of her bench, getting 13 players in the match and was led by eight kills apiece from Sara Mossakowski and Stacey Reilly.

Louisiana hit .400 for the match, reaching the .400 plateau for just the third time in the last four years. Andrea Hole directed the offense for the majority of the match, and came a dig shy of her fourth straight double-double with 25 assists and nine digs. Jessica Bartczyszyn dished out nine of UL's 41 assists for the match as well, while Caitlyn Auxilien joined Hole with a match-high nine digs.

Chanelle Gardner added six kills, and Kelly Wiesmann and Kae Kae Lockhart had five apiece, with Lockhart's coming on just six swings.

The Cajuns scored 15 kills in the first set, hitting .464 with just a pair of attack errors in the opening set, and followed that with a .414 mark in the second frame before closing with .333 in the third set while siding out on 12 of 15 tries.

Louisiana 3, Southern Miss 1
Chanelle Gardner had 13 kills and five blocks, and Andrea Hole dished out 46 assists in a 3-1 (25-19, 15-25, 25-15, 25-19) win over Southern Miss.

Gardner did most of her damage in the first set, going for six kills and three blocks in the opening frame. Stacey Reilly continued her solid start to her Cajun career with 11 kills and four digs, while Caitlyn Auxilien's 18 digs were tops for the match.

In all, the Cajuns hit .241 for the match, only hampered by a second set that saw them commit eight attack errors – twice as many as any other set on the night. The service line was also Louisiana's friend with 12 service aces, its most since scoring 13 aces in August of 2011.

Five of those service aces came from freshman Maddie White, with Hole and Sara Mossakowski adding three more apiece. Mossakowski just missed a double-double with nine kills on 26 swings (.231), 11 digs and three blocks.

UL staked itself to an early 7-2 lead in the first set before things quickly tightened midway through; however, an 8-2 run sparked by a kill from Reilly and aided by scores from Mossakowski, Kaylee Nemeth and Abby Filce gave the Cajuns some breathing room at 19-14. From there, the Cajuns turned to Gardner, who scored three of UL's final four points of the set in the 25-19 win.

Set two, however, was a different story with UL being its own worst enemy with eight attack errors in the set and allowing USM to score 12 straight points – 11 behind the serve of setter Kristen Flemming – to quickly turn an 8-7 edge to a 20-7 margin.

But UL returned to form out of the halftime locker room, hitting .297 in the sway set. Filce came through with three scores in the frame, as did Nemeth and the defense did its part in holding USM to just .086 hitting.

The final set was much of the same with the Cajuns allowing Southern Miss to swing just .136 while hitting .324 themselves, this time getting three kills from both Mossakowski and Reilly. It did not take long for the Cajuns to take the lead for good, doing so on consecutive service aces from White to get an early 8-5 edge and not surrendering the advantage from there on out.

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Louisiana Takes Two In Tournament’s Opening Day

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Team Stats

Sara Mossakowski

Stacey Reilly

Chanelle Gardner

Kelly Wiesmann

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