Football: Tovell, Malbrue Earn LSWA Weekly Football Honors

BATON ROUGE – After each playing a key role in the Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns football team’s come-from-behind 30-24 win over ULM, linebackers Dominique Tovell and Chaiziere Malbrue earned Player of the Week honors on Monday by the Louisiana Sports Writers Association.
 
Tovell, a senior from Columbia, Miss., was named the LSWA Defensive Player of the Week after posting a career-high 12 tackles, with two sacks, two tackles for loss, a forced fumble and a fumble recovery. Tovell recovered a fumble on the game’s first play from scrimmage, which led to a Stevie Artigue field goal, and later forced a fumble on the Warhawks’ first drive of the second quarter.
 
The senior captain added a sack in the first quarter before his sack in the fourth quarter on third-and-4 led to a blocked punt by Malbrue and helped the Ragin’ Cajuns erase a 24-9 first-half deficit.
 
Malbrue, a redshirt freshman from Carencro, was named the LSWA Special Teams Player of the Week as his blocked punt would lead to a 14-point fourth quarter for the Ragin’ Cajuns.
 
The former Westminster Academy product split two defenders and blocked a Chris Qualls punt that was recovered by Montrel Carter at the ULM 16. Malbrue’s block – the first since Bradley Brown at Florida in 2012 – would eventually lead to Brooks Haack‘s 13-yard TD run and cut the lead to 24-22 with 7:21 remaining.
 
Louisiana (3-4, 2-1 SBC) will return to action on Saturday, when it travels to Atlanta to face Georgia State (2-5, 1-2 SBC) in a 1 p.m. CT at the Georgia Dome.