MONROE, La. – Only seven games remain on the schedule for ULM volleyball and the toughest of those is this weekend. The Warhawks will travel to the Lone Star state to face UT-Arlington on Friday (Oct. 26) and Texas State on Sunday (Oct. 28).
With six of those seven remaining games being league games, ULM needs some quality wins if it wants a spot at the Sun Belt Tournament next month. The Warhawks (9-14, 2-8) have already surpassed last seasons' win-loss records and they don't plan on stopping there.
Last week, freshman
Kate Blasingame earned Sun Belt Freshman of the Week after leading ULM to a weekend sweep of conference opponents, Georgia State and Georgia Southern. It stands as the first ever Freshman of the Week honor earned by a Warhawk.
Overall, Blasingame is second on the team in total kills (152) just behind redshirt-junior
Catherine Griffith who leads the Warhawks with 176 total kills and a .282 hitting percentage. Griffith is currently 10
th in the SBC in hitting percentage.
The Warhawks rank third in the Sun Belt in blocks, after combining for 22 blocks on the weekend, including a season-high 14 blocks against conference opponents in ULM's 3-1 win over Georgia Southern.
UTA (13-8, 7-4) and ULM will meet for the second time this season on Friday at 6:30 p.m. Currently third in the West Division, the Mavericks are hosting the Warhawks after dropping a 3-1 decision to South Alabama last weekend (Oct. 20); UTA has won four of its last five games.
Junior Maverick Madison Hill earned Offensive Player of the Week for the Sun Belt after hitting a combined .452 and tallying 24 kills against Troy and South Alabama. Hill has recorded double-digit kills on 10 occasions this season, including six times during Sun Belt play. Hill currently ranks first in the conference hitting an impressive .381 at the net.
UTA is at the top of the league in regards to digs, averaging just over 16 digs per set. Junior libero Madelyn St. Germain is at the front of the Mavericks defense efforts with 4.40 digs per set. St. Germain has earned defensive player of the week twice this season and hit a season-high 35 digs against Little Rock in a five-set victory in late September.
The last time ULM and UTA met, the Warhawks fell 3-1 to the Mavericks despite what looked to be a fiery third-set comeback. ULM was down 2-0 when the Warhawks sparked a 25-15 set-three win, but UTA bounced back in set four, walking away with the 25-23 set win.
Sunday's opponent, Texas State (20-5, 11-0) currently leads the West Division and the Sun Belt, taking with them into the weekend, a 15-match win-streak the longest in the conference by 12 matches.
Earlier this week, Texas State earned a national ranking of No. 22 in this week's VolleyballMag.com Mid-Major Top 25 Poll; the ranking is the first in school history.
ULM opened up Sun Belt play against Texas State earlier this year, falling to the Bobcats in three-straight sets (25-19, 25-13, 25-19). Freshmen Blasingame and
Karlee Wilkerson lead the Warhawk attack in the loss with six kills apiece.
The Bobcats are anchored by freshman setter Emily DeWalt, who leads the conference with 10.64 assists per set. DeWalt is only one of four setters in the Sun Belt with a double-digit assist average. DeWalt earned Setter of the Week on Monday (Oct. 22) for the fifth time this season, she also has five Freshman of the Week awards for a total of 10 weekly accolades this season, tying the Sun Belt record.
Leading Texas State is Madison Daigle. The senior middle blocker out of Baton Rouge is hitting a cumulative .353 on the season, with teammate Amy Pflughaupt racking up a team-best 256 kills on the season, averaging 3.16 kills per set.
Both of this weekend's matches are available via live stats and stream, links are posted at ULMWarhawks.com. Follow the Warhawks on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at @ULM_VB to stay up to date on team happenings, schedule changes, live in-game updates, and much more.
