Volleyball Ends Season On Senior Day

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NEW ORLEANS – The University of New Orleans volleyball team ended the 2016 season on its home court on Saturday afternoon, falling in a five-set match to Southeastern Louisiana (18-25, 25-15, 25-20, 22-25, 15-9).

Prior to the match, the Privateers honored their senior class of middle blocker Keke Richards (Business Management), outside hitter Cara Sander (Marketing) and right side hitter Takierra Boughton (Interdisciplinary Studies). Richards posted eight kills in the match on a .353 hitting percentage, leaving her with a career clip of .288, while Sanders led the Privateers with three service aces to give her 71 for her collegiate career.

"We really wanted to send our seniors off with a victory," head coach Millicent Van Norden said. "We fought hard to extend the match and it worked, but we were inconsistent in the fifth set with our passing and floor defense which helped Southeastern take the set."

Freshman setter Sarah Thomas (Accounting & Finance) ended the match with 39 assists, giving her 1022 for the season and 9.46 assists per set. Her average is the highest since the 2006 campaign and marks the second-consecutive season the Privateers' primary setter eclipsed four-digit assists with Celeste Ramirez ending 2015 with 1046, marking the first back-to-back occurrence since Jaci Bayley did it in 2006 and 2007.

Sophomore middle blocker Kaitlyn Grice (Biology) recorded a career-high eight blocks, one solo and seven assisted, to propel New Orleans (5-25, 1-15 SLC) to 12 total blocks, tied with their previous match against Southeastern Louisiana (7-22, 6-10 SLC) for the most this season. On offense, freshman Jordan Yauch (Biological Science) led the Privateers with 12 kill, while matching sophomore defensive specialist Samantha Uline (Exercise Physiology) in digs with 11 for her seventh double-double of the season.

The two sides exchanged the opening 12 points of the first set, before back-to-back points by Southeastern Louisiana (7-22, 6-10 SLC) scored back-to-back points to go up 8-6. New Orleans (5-25, 1-15 SLC) quickly took the lead with a 5-0 run featuring three kills from Yauch to take a 12-9 advantage. UNO held onto the lead for the remainder of the set, creating a seven point lead at 20-13 after a 6-1 run.

Following a second set victory for SLU, the visitors looked to take the 2-1 overall lead with a commanding 18-9 lead in the third set.  The Privateers fought back and cut to the deficit to five at 20-15, but five-straight by the Lions put them one set away from victory.

UNO came out firing in the fourth set, opening up with a 6-1 lead. The Privateers managed to hold onto the lead for the bulk of the stanza, until a late 3-0 run by Southeastern gave them the 18-17 advantage. New Orleans quickly retook the lead at 21-19, but back-to-back points from SLU knotted it up at 21-all. A pair of costly errors by the visiting side gave the Privateers a two-point lead, with a kill from sophomore Blessing Dunn (Business Management) giving the royal blue and silver set point. Southeastern ended the spree with a point before another kill from Dunn forced the deciding fifth set.
 
The 2016 season saw a plethora of Privateers set career-marks. Grice set her match-high in the final contest of the season, finishing the campaign with a personal best 0.89 blocks per set. Uline set her single-game high at 30 in UNO's win against Southeastern Louisiana while her 367 digs and 3.50 digs per set season average are personal-bests. Dunn also set her career-high in digs, finishing the season with 324 and a 2.97 average.