Cajuns Can’t Overcome Mistakes, Fall to ASU 11/11/11

The Ragin Cajuns volleyball team couldn’t overcome their mistakes Friday evening, as they fell in straight sets to Sun Belt West leader Arkansas State 25-22, 25-20, 25-21 at Earl K. Long Gym.

The Cajuns (13-18, 5-10 Sun Belt) committed twice as many errors as the Red Wolves (20-9, 11-4 Sun Belt), proving costly in the end result.

UL scored four straight points snapping a 5-5 tie in the third set, including consecutive kills by Lavinia Tataran and Kaylee Nemeth, an attack error by Arkansas State’ Amanda Chaparro, followed by a kill from Tonice White to take a 9-5 advantage.

Arkansas State answered right back scoring five straight points of their own, with the help of the Cajuns committing a service error, and two attack errors in the process.

The set remained tight until the Red Wolves put together another streak of five consecutive points, that included three consecutive attack errors by the Cajuns to build a 20-15 lead.

ASU’s Jasmine Terry finished off the victory with a kill that ended the third set, in which there were 11 ties and three lead changes.

Tonice White led Louisiana with nine kills. Lesley Mirarchi tallied seven kills, and Lavinia Tataran had six.

Jasmine Terry and Taylor Szypulski were huge for Arkansas State as they registered 14 and 11 kills respectively.

The Red Wolves took a tightly contested first set 25-22, hitting .324 and posting a 69 percent success rate on sideouts.

Kills from Mandi Gavin and Andrea Hole, an attack error by ASU’s Kelsie Hodges, and a kill from Lesley Mirachi got the Cajuns off to a quick 4-0 lead.

The visitors finally grabbed their first lead in the set scoring four straight points off of a Taylor Szypulski kill, back-to-back kills from Kelsie Hodges, and an attack error by Lesley Mirarchi. Arkansas State built a lead of 14-11 and never looked back.

UL hit just .118 and committed six errors in the second set which featured three ties and two lead changes.

Louisiana fell behind 11-7 early in the set as the result of a couple errors and a kill from Allison Kearney.

The Cajuns closed the gap to one at 20-19, but ASU finished off the set scoring five of the final six points to take the set 25-20.

UL will play their final match of the regular season at 1 p.m. on Sunday against UALR at Earl K. Long Gym. The Ragin’ Cajuns are set to celebrate senior day as Lesley Mirarchi and Kerrilyn Lazare play their final matches at Earl K. Long Gym.