RUSTON – The Louisiana Tech volleyball team will close out its 2019 campaign with a pair of Conference-USA road matches this weekend.
 
The Lady Techsters open the weekend at 6 p.m. on Thursday with a showdown against no. 19 Western Kentucky. Tech will close its season Saturday at 1 p.m. at Southern Miss.
 
"We are going into our last weekend of season, our last weekend with this particular group all together, and our last memories on the court with these seniors," said Lady Techster head coach Amber McCray. "While we fell short of our conference tournament goal it has still been a memorable season of many firsts, and ultimately we just want to go out and compete hard, leave it all out on the court and cherish every moment of the time we have left."
 
"This weekend presents a great challenge for us. WKU is a very talented team obviously having an incredible year with a well-deserved national ranking and now leading the league. Southern Miss has struggled in terms of their record, but they put up a fight this weekend against us as they have with teams all year," McCray continued.
 
Tech (13-13, 3-9 C-USA) enters its final weekend of the season with an opportunity to finish off its best year since 2003 - with one win – or 2002 – with two wins. The Lady Techsters have already more than doubled their 2018 win total in McCray's first year at the helm. With at least one win this weekend, McCray will have posted Tech's best first season by a head coach since Chris Rudiger went 16-11 in 1995.
 
The Lady Techsters' first chance to reach those milestones will be against the 19^th-ranked Hilltoppers. Western Kentucky comes into the weekend with a chance to secure a Conference-USA championship after defeating then-no. 17 Rice on Sunday in Houston. Lauren Matthews leads the Hilltoppers with 4.02 kills per set, and Paige Briggs is close behind with 3.34. Matthews also averages 1.22 blocks per set.
 
WKU swept Tech when the two teams squared off in 2018. Madeline Davis led the Lady Techsters with 8 kills and 6 blocks.
 
A trip to Hattiesburg, Miss. will be Tech's last of the 2019 season. The Lady Techsters defeated Southern Miss 3-1 (25-22, 19-25, 25-22, 25-21) on Sunday in the Thomas Assembly Center. Emily Boylan and Marie-Helene Verlinden combined for 29 kills and and each hit better than .500 to lead the Lady Techsters.
 
Live statistics for both of this week's games are available through links on latechsports.com. CUSA.tv subscribers will be able to watch both matches through the platform, and Western Kentucky will also be streaming the match on Facebook.
 
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