Women's Volleyball | 10/22/2014 2:33:00 PM
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Live VideoABILENE - Abilene Christian volleyball finishes the road portion of its 2014 schedule this week and next as the Wildcats take off on a six-day, four-match trip though the heart of Cajun Country with matches at New Orleans, Southeastern Louisiana, UL Lafayette and Nicholls.
Thursday's match with the Privateers and next Monday's and Tuesday's contests at UL Lafayette and Nicholls start at 7 p.m., while Saturday's duel with the Lions starts at 2 p.m.
Live video and stats will be made available for all four matches.
ACU (2-19, 0-8 SLC) and New Orleans (6-17, 0-9 SLC) were both swept last weekend. The Privateers lost consecutive 3-0 decisions on the road to Northwestern State and Stephen F. Austin, while ACU was defeated 3-1 at home by Houston Baptist and Texas A&M-Corpus Christi.
Senior
Jennifer Loerch paced the Wildcats' offense vs. the Huskies and Islanders with a combined 25 kills in addition to blocking five shots and digging out 15 attacks. In fact, the Wildcats outblocked their home-court opposition by a margin of 19-11 as senior
Neely Borger registered nine blocks to go along with her 10 kills and .375 hitting percentage.
Last weekend also saw the Wildcats employ a two-setter system, in which junior
Sarah Siemens assisted on 48 successful attacks and sophomore Tucker Brown recorded 22. And with libero
Madison Hoover temporarily out of action, six different Wildcats finished the two-match series with 10-or-more digs. Sophomore
Brooke Ray was tops on the team with 39 digs, followed by
Dorothy Swanson with 26 and
Nicole Morales with 19.
Hoover remains ranked among the Southland Conference leaders in digs with 3.86 per set despite missing the last few matches.
Lexi Mercier is fifth with 1.03 blocks per set and Loerch ranks fifth with 3.78 kills per set.
Losers of its last two, Southeastern Louisiana stands at 7-13 overall and 4-4 vs. the Southland coming into this weekend's homestand that also will feature a Thursday night game vs. Incarnate Word. The Lions are led by junior setter Mikayla Shippy who ranks eighth in assists with 9.07 per set and junior libero Morgan Todd who has a 5.03 digs per set average.
The Ragin Cajuns (15-8, 5-7 Sun Belt) are the third Sun Belt team the Wildcats have seen this fall along with Texas State and UT-Arlington, which are currently second and third, respectively, behind undefeated Arkansas-Little Rock.
ULL enters this weekend in seventh after having lost its last two conference matches at Appalachian State and Georgia Southern. The Ragin Cajuns will play at Georgia State Friday before returning home to play host to ACU.
Nicholls (7-13, 3-4) is one of the conference's better defensive teams as the Colonels rank second in the league with 17.75 digs per set. Libero and senior Kalynn Egea is first in the SLC with 5.71 digs, while on offense, the Colonels are receiving 4.16 kills per set from sophomore Kaci Eaton.
Nicholls has lost its last two while in the midst of a five-match road trip and their match with the Wildcats Tuesday will begin a three-match homestand, where they are 2-2 this season.
