Ragin' Cajuns Wrap Up Road Trip in Texas

SAN MARCOS, Texas – Louisiana Ragin' Cajuns Volleyball opens a weekend in Texas on Friday facing Texas State in a 6:30 p.m. match at Strahan Coliseum in San Marcos.

Following Friday's match, the Ragin' Cajuns travel north on I-35 to Arlington where they will wrap up the weekend at the College Park Center against UT Arlington in a 6:30 p.m. match.

The trip through Texas represents the second half of a four-match road trip for the Ragin' Cajuns (8-16, 4-5 Sun Belt) which began last weekend with the Coastal Carolina-Appalachian State swing.

Louisiana is facing Texas State (16-9, 9-1 Sun Belt) and UT Arlington (11-14, 5-5 Sun Belt) for the first time in Sun Belt Conference play this season. The Bobcats and Mavericks will return the Ragin' Cajuns trip and play in Earl K. Long Gym the weekend on Nov. 11-12.

With just three weeks remaining in the regular season, the battle for positioning in the Sun Belt Conference Tournament is starting to heat up. Louisiana is currently in seventh place in the tournament's ladder, but sits just a half game behind fourth place.

The Ragin' Cajuns are coming off a four-set win at Appalachian State last Sunday which improved the squad to 2-2 on the road in SBC play. The road win could be key at season's end, given the small gap that currently exists between fourth and eighth place in SBC Tournament picture – one game separates the entire group.

Louisiana's offense, paced by 3.36 kills per set from Stacey Reilly and a .349 hitting percentage from Chanelle Gardner, has added another dimension with the emergence of reigning Sun Belt Offensive Player of the Week Nia Antoine.

Antoine, who averaged four-plus kills per set and totaled 30 kills during the trip to Coastal Carolina and Appalachian State last weekend, carries a string of three consecutive matches reaching double digit kills. In Sun Belt play, she is hitting .407 with only 13 errors through 167 swings and is averaging 2.79 kills per set.

Gardner enters the weekend needing only six kills to surpass Lesley Mirarchi as the program's rally scoring era career kills leader. The St. Martinville High product currently has 948 career kills, trailing Mirarchi's 953 kills which has been the rally scoring era standard since 2011.

Setter Jessica Bartczyszyn is closing in on 1,000 assists. She has totaled 906 assists this season and presently ranks second in the SBC averaging 9.54 assists per set.

Libero Sydney Davis, who ranks sixth in the league with 4.09 digs per set, has scooped double digits in 18 of 24 matches. She needs 11 digs to reach the 400-mark for the first time in her career. Davis' current total of 389 digs in a career-high figure.

Texas State brings a seven-match win streak into Friday's match. The Bobcats' offense is multi-faceted as five different players average over 2.00 kills per set, led by Kelsey Weynand at 2.79 kills per set. Setter Erin Hoppe averages 9.53 assists per set and Micah Dinwiddie, the SBC Freshman of the Week the past two weeks, averages 3.63 digs per set.

UT Arlington has dropped its past two outings, both on the road, to Georgia State and Texas State. The Mavericks are 7-5 at home (2-3 SBC) and are led on offense by Qiana Canete who averages 2.80 kills per set and picked up her 1,000th career kill on Tuesday at Texas State. Setter Cassidy Wheeler, a senior playing in her final home matches this weekend, guides the offense with 7.28 assists per set.

The Ragin' Cajuns are playing their final weekend away from home in the 2016 regular season. Four of the season's final five matches will be held at Earl K. Long Gym over the next two weeks, with the lone road outing being a midweek trip to Monroe to face ULM on Nov. 8.

Coach Mazeitis-Fontenot's Thoughts
"The fact that we went to App State second on last weekend's trip and won in the mountains – with tired legs after a six-hour bus trip – made me really proud. App State might not have a great record, but they're a really great team. Our girls responded both defensively and offensively. It was the best defense we've played all season long. It was fun to end our trip that way and it was a must-win for us to make sure we're playing in Arlington in the conference tournament.

At Coastal, we didn't play poorly, but we also didn't play with a spark. We did some really good stuff…we just didn't have the emotional energy that we needed. We very much corrected that against App State."

Series Notables
Texas State: Texas State holds a 10-0 edge in all-time meetings…Cajuns were the Bobcats' opponent for their first-ever Sun Belt Tournament match on Nov. 21, 2013 in Troy…Programs have met eight times since 2011.

UT Arlington: UTA leads the all-time series 13-1 (5-1 in SBC play)…The Cajuns and Mavericks were foes in the Southland Conference from 1982-86...UTA won all four matchups in the SLC era (1982 tournament, 1984-86 regular season).

Up Next
The Ragin' Cajuns return to the friendly confines of Earl K. Long Gym on UL Lafayette's Homecoming Weekend to host Troy on Friday (Nov. 4) and South Alabama on Sunday (Nov. 6).

The matches with the Trojans and Jaguars opens a stretch in which four of the final five regular season matches will be at Earl K. Long Gym. After a trip to Monroe on Nov. 8, Louisiana concludes the season hosting UT Arlington and Texas State the weekend of Nov. 11-12.

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Players Mentioned

Nia Antoine

Jessica Bartczyszyn

Sydney Davis

Chanelle Gardner

Stacey Reilly