MOBILE, Ala. | After a pair of dominant sets to open the match, South Alabama rallied back in the third to clinch the 3-0 (25-15, 25-12, 25-22) victory in the series opener and extend its win streak to seven Thursday night at Jag Gym.

With the win, South Alabama (11-8, 7-2 SBC) has now won 10 of its last 13 matches, while Louisiana falls to 6-12 and 2-5 in the league with the loss.

Abryanna Cannon and Maradith O'Gorman paced the club with 14 kills apiece. Cannon recorded her eighth double-double of the season with 11 blocks and hit .355 in the match. O'Gorman posted a team-best .542 hitting percentage as she committed just one attack error in her 24 attempts. The junior also had a team-best five blocks – three solo.

As a team, the Jaguars had just six attack errors and finished with a season-best .382 hitting percentage. Anna Loberg recorded 39 assists and added seven digs.

Three players ended the night with multiple service aces as Cannon recorded three and both Sarah Gooch and Briana Wilson had two apiece.

Quotable – head coach Jesse Ortiz
- On what's going right with the team right now during the win streak: "We're just playing complimentary volleyball. Our reception has been good, our serving's been good, and we're just being efficient and smart about our decision making on offense and defense. I like the fact that there's a lot of trust there, and you can see that when there's broken plays, they get good balls in and have the mentality that we are going to play good defense out of it. We're really confident right now and you can see that in their play."

- On just one attack error over the first two sets: "That's pretty efficient. You could tell that they were just a machine at that point, especially in set two. It's pretty awesome to watch when we play like that. It's been a lot of work. Every night's a new night in the Sun Belt, and tonight was our night. Tomorrow could be anything, so we're just going to need to come prepared for it."

- On the difference in the third set rally: "Tenacity. When your enemy's down and has their back to the wall, they're going to be tough. Louisiana didn't want to go down, and they fought hard. We got in our serve to stay in the game and caught ourselves up. Once we were able to even it up, it was anybody's game, and I liked our odds. I felt we put ourselves in position to win and I was proud of how they went after it when we needed it."

Junior Right Side Hitter Maradith O'Gorman
- On what was going well for her tonight: "It helps when we are in system and we were really strong with our passing. Anna (Loberg) was just getting me the ball and it was easy to put it away."

- On why we are playing well right now: "I feel it all starts in practice. We've really been locking in and realizing what we're working for each and every day. Everyone puts their head down and is ready to fight for whatever comes in front of us."

Junior Libero Briana Wilson
- On why the team is playing well: "I think after the loss to Troy, we decided that we needed to flip a switch and show what kind of team we really had. Since then, we've been going and grinding."

- On battling back in the third set after the strong first two sets: "Going into the third set, we knew that since their (Louisiana's) backs were against the wall, they were going to come out harder. We knew though that we just needed to focus on ourselves, because it's us that we need to worry about."

How It Happened 
Set 1 – South Alabama 25, Louisiana 15
•    South Alabama was the first to gain an advantage, rattling off a string of five unanswered points
•    Tied 7-7, Cannon slammed home a kill to ignite the scoring for the Jaguars and then capped off the run with back-to-back put aways to give South a 12-7 lead
•    Holding a five-point advantage (18-13), the Jags put the set away by picking up seven of the final nine points
•    O'Gorman – who had five kills in the opening set – book ended the run with kills, while she also had a solo block
•    Gooch also recorded a pair of aces during the run
•    Cannon led the club with seven kills during the first set and the Jags posted a .500 hitting percentage, recording 18 kills on 34 attacks and just one attack error
•    Loberg – the reigning SBC Setter of the Week – had 14 assists in the frame as well

Set 2 – South Alabama 25, Louisiana 12
•    Like the opening set, the Jaguars used an early run in the second frame to gain some breathing room
•    Cannon began the scoring with another kill and then later posted two-straight aces before Loberg and Lillie Simons capped off the 9-1 run
•    Later in the set, the Jaguars blew things open with another big run, this one a 7-0 run to take a commanding 13-point lead (20-7)
•    Following a kill by Dalayla Blackwell, Louisiana committed three-straight attack errors
•    O'Gorman then sandwiched a pair of kills around a block assists with Blackwell
•    The Jaguars were again on fire offensively, posting a .483 hitting percentage and didn't commit an attack error
•    The defense also held Louisiana to a .026 hitting percentage as the Ragin' Cajuns recorded eight attack errors
•    South Alabama used a balanced offensive attack as six players had two or more kills, led by four from O'Gorman

Set 3 – South Alabama 25, Louisiana 22
•    Louisiana took its first multi-point lead of the match at 8-6 with a run of three-straight points early on in the third set with two kills coming from Chelsea Gilmore, but O'Gorman answered back with two of her own to tie things back up at 8-8
•    The Ragin' Cajuns quickly responded with a 6-0 run
•    Cailin Demps began the scoring with back-to-back kills and Lauryn Hill – who had three kills of her own during the scoring spurt – capped things off and put the visitors up 15-9
•    South Alabama fought back and pulled within two after kill by Blackwell and solo block by O'Gorman, and later trimmed the deficit to one (19-18) after a kill by Cannon
•    After Louisiana pushed across a pair of points, the Jaguars came right back with four more points 
•    O'Gorman began the run with a kill and then teamed up with Simons for a block to narrow the Cajun lead to one
•    Wilson followed with an ace – her second of the set – to tie the set up (21-21) and force a Louisiana time out, and then on the ensuing point, O'Gorman put the Jags back out in front with another kill
•    Tied 22-22, South rattled off the final three points of the match to seal the 25-22 win
•    Cannon slammed home two-straight kills and then teamed up with Simons for another block to end the match
•    Cannon and O'Gorman both had five kills in the final frame for the Jags

Post-Match Notes
•    The meeting marked the 60th in the all-time series and the 25th in Mobile
•    South Alabama has now won six straight in the all-time series, the longest win streak in the series by the Jags
•    In her last eight matches (all starts), Blackwell has committed just 14 attack errors in her 111 offensive attacks
•    Cannon has double-digit kill tallies in 14 of her 19 matches, including nine of her last 10
•    Cannon has also had nine or more digs in 10 of her last 12 matches, including four-straight in double figures
•    Cannon and Loberg have each a double-double in four straight
•    O'Gorman has recorded eight or more kills in 12 of her last 13 outings
•    O'Gorman has had three or more blocks in nine of her last 10 matches, including eight straight, and totaled 35 total blocks over that stretch
•    With her .500 hitting percentage, Blackwell has hit .333 or better in four of her last five, including three matches of .467 or higher
•    Wilson has recorded 13 or more digs in 12-straight    

Up Next
•    South Alabama will close out the series with the Ragin' Cajuns on Friday night at 6 p.m. The Jaguars will honor former players in between sets two and three.

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