LAFAYETTE, La. – Lamar University dropped a doubleheader at Louisiana-Lafayette Saturday afternoon. The Cardinals dropped both ends of the doubleheader by the score of 3-0. The first match saw LU fall by the scores of 25-15, 27-25, 25-14, while the afternoon contest had the Cards fall, 25-12, 25-14, 25-13.
 
The Cardinals were held to a .167 attack percentage in the opening match recording 34 kills on 114 attempts, but with 15 errors. UL Lafayette posted a .305 percentage in match one with 47 kills on 118 swings. It was a similar story in the second match as LU (0-5) finished with 22 kills on 101 swings, with 13 errors (.089). The Ragin Cajuns ended the second match with 42 kills on 94 attempts and just six errors (.383).
 
"I don't feel like this was our best performance on offense or defense," said Lay. "We struggled to put things together and when you play a veteran team like UL Lafayette who doesn't make mistakes we needed to be on our A game. It just wasn't there for us today.
 
"It's a good learning opportunity for us, and the program moving forward. Obviously, it was a very tumultuous offseason and we haven't had a lot of time to implement our system. Any time you can play it's a learning opportunity. We're going to watch film and make improvements. For us it's all about getting to the spring season. We are going to be diligent in learning from these opportunities," added Lay.
 
The Cardinals were led by sophomore Kaitlyn Gil's 16 kills, 21 digs and three blocks, while senior Kayla Neumann added 14 kills and seven digs.
 
After dropping the opening set, the Cardinals jumped out of the gate quickly in the second set. The two teams rotated the first three points before Big Red scored four straight to take a 6-2 lead. The run was aided by three consecutive UL Lafayette attack errors followed by two Kayla Neumann kills. Unfortunately, ULL reclaimed a two-point advantage after the Cards hit into four errors in a five-point stretch.
 
Lay called a timeout to settle the troops and the Cardinals responded. LU surrendered the first point coming out of the timeout but Big Red immediately flipped the momentum. After getting a kill from Gil, the Cardinals rattled off an 8-3 run to claim a two-point advantage. The Cards held that two-point lead late until the Ragin' Cajuns tied the set at 22. After Gil got the lead back for the Red and White with another kill, ULL was forced to call its second timeout of the set. The Cardinals dropped a heartbreaker in set 2, 27-25, after serving for the set twice only to come up short.
 
LU's defense stepped up in the second set keeping their hosts off balance. The Cardinals forced the Ragin' Cajuns' attack percentage to drop by more than 230 points from the first set.
 
The break in between the two matches did not favor the Red and White. The Cardinals started the opening set of the second match out of rhythm with just three kills (two errors) in their first 12 attempts, while the Ragin' Cajuns had six kills with no errors in their first 12 swings.
 
The Ragin' Cajuns managed to push their advantage to nine points and never looked back holding on for a 25-12 decision. The Cardinals' struggles in the second set continued through set two as LU managed just 11 kills with nine errors, while UL Lafayette knocked down 29 kills with only six errors for a .348 attack percentage to build a 2-0 lead heading into the third set. UL Lafayette held the momentum in the third set for a 25-13 win to wrap up the doubleheader sweep.