RUSTON -- The Louisiana Tech volleyball team opened up the LA Tech Invitational with a 3-0 sweep of Southern Thursday night inside the Thomas Assembly Center.
 
The Lady Techsters improved to 5-7 on the year, with all five victories coming via sweeps, while Southern falls to 0-5 overall.
 
Southern surged out to early leads of 4-2 and 8-6 before a pair of kills from sophomore Faith Menary and service aces from Morgan Smith and Laura De Pra pushed the Lady Techsters out in front 11-10. The Lady Jaguars used a 7-2 run to take a 17-13 advantage before pushing the lead to as much as 23-17. LA Tech would score seven of the next eight point to knot the score at 24-24 before a trio of kills from lone senior Jordyn Carswell gave the Lady Techsters set one 28-26.
 
Sophomores Carly Doros and Mackenzie Murray collected a trio of kills to open the second frame before Southern used a 6-0 spurt to hold a 6-3 advantage. A kill be Smith sparked a 4-0 run, giving LA Tech an 8-7 lead. The Lady Techsters pushed their advantage out to 14-9 with another 4-0 run, highlighted by a pair of kills from Menary and Doros. Southern would cut the lead down to two at 15-13 but another 5-1 run gave LA Tech a 20-14 lead. The Lady Techsters claimed set two, 25-19, as Doros powered home her sixth kill of the set.
 
LA Tech controlled the third set, jumping out to a 11-4 lead. The Lady Jaguars would claw their way back with a 6-0 run of their own to cut LA Tech's lead down to 13-11. The Lady Techsters responded with a pair of kills from Smith and Murray to hold a 21-14. After a kills by Southern, Tech finished things off with kills from Meers and Carswell to give the Lady Techsters a 25-15 set win and a 3-0 sweep.
 
NOTABLES

• LA Tech improves to 4-0 all-time against Southern.
• All four victories over the Lady Jaguars have come via a sweep.
• All five of LA Tech's wins this season have come via sweeps.
• Morgan Smith had a career-high 10 kills.
• Jordyn Carswell collected a team-high 10 kills
• McKenzie Johnson led the Lady Techsters with 17 digs.
• Johnson has collected 11 or more digs all but one match this season.
• Mallory Meers and Faith Menary each collected a career-high 13 digs.
• Carly Doros recorded three total blocks.
• LA Tech served up seven ace serves.

QUOTABLE
Head Coach Amber McCray
"Hats off to Southern for playing scrappy and having a couple of kids we failed to stop at all. I am proud that we found a way to come back from down 24-20 in the first set because that's hard to do against anyone. It's a win tonight, but we need to be so much better. Luckily we have another chance to clean up our errors and compete against Little Rock tomorrow."

UP NEXT
LA Tech will be back in action Friday night at 6:00 p.m. when the Lady Techsters meets Little Rock. The LA Tech Invitational will continue tomorrow afternoon when Little Rock squares off against New Orleans.  

SOCIAL MEDIA
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