Volleyball: Commanding Performance Helps Louisiana Volleyball Ease Past MVSU

With big scoring spurts and precision serving the Ragin’ Cajuns never faced a deficit

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at Southern Miss

8/28/2021 | 5:00 p.m.

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HATTIESBURG, Miss. – Louisiana Volleyball stretched its season-opening win streak to three matches following a quick sweep of Mississippi Valley (25-8, 25-11, 25-11) to start off Saturday’s play in the Southern Miss Classic.
 
A crisp and efficient performance by the Ragin’ Cajuns (3-0) saw the squad hit above .300 in all three sets on the way to a commanding 44-13 advantage in kills. Louisiana controlled MVSU (0-3) from the service line was well, scoring 11 aces in the match.
 
Louisiana, which never trailed at any moment in the contest, waste little time setting the tone as a 7-0 run stretched out the lead in the opening set to 9-1. At one point the squad had six aces and nine kills off only 17 swings and held a commanding 22-5 lead.
 
Kelsey Bennett served up back-to-back aces as the Ragin’ Cajuns forged ahead 5-2 in the second set after an early tie. MVSU snuck back within a point, 6-5, before Louisiana rolled of four straight points culminating in a kill and block solo from Kara Barnes to re-establish control.
 
Bennett served out the first six points of the third set and the Ragin’ Cajuns never looked back in closing out the Devilettes. Louisiana fired off 18 kills in the final stanza, charged by six alone recorded by Cami Hicks, to put the exclamation point on the third straight win to kick off the Kristi Gray era.
 
With the combination of a strong serve and defense that averaged 16 digs per set the Ragin’ Cajuns were able to pressure the MVSU offense into more attack errors (15) than kills recorded (13).
 
By finishing with a .386 hitting percentage (44 K, 10 E, 88 TA) Louisiana posted a third consecutive match of a .200-plus performance.
 
LEADING THE RAGIN’ CAJUNS
The offense was led by the combination of Hicks’ match-high 12 kills, nine kills from Coco Gillett and eight kills apiece from Emery Judkins and Kara Barnes. Hicks’ production came off of only 19 swings and a .526 hitting percentage.
 
Bennett shined at the service line with three aces and rounded up a match-high 19 digs.
 
Siena DeCambra and Reka Kotorman took turns running the offense with Kotorman leading the way with 19 assists in her Ragin’ Cajuns debut.
 
Hannah Ramirez scooped 10 digs to reach the exact amount needed to continue her streak of consecutive matches with double-digit digs which is now at 39 straight dating back to Oct. 2019.
 
Barnes tallied three blocks (two solo) and eight other individuals collected at least one dig with DeCambra (six digs) and Gillett (five digs) having the next highest totals.
 
Ramirez tied Bennett for match-high honors with three service aces, increasing her weekend total in Hattiesburg to eight.
 
UP NEXT
Louisiana meets host-Southern Miss in a Saturday evening showdown at 5 p.m. to round out play in the Southern Miss Classic at the Wellness Center on the USM campus.
 
The match is being streamed on C-USA.tv (subscription fees apply) while live stats are available through the link on the Volleyball schedule page at RaginCajuns.com.
 
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