Volleyball falls to Lamar Cardinals at home, 3-0

Thursday, October 10

Abilene, Texas

7 p.m.

Abilene Christian

5-10, 1-6SLC

Lamar

5-14, 3-4SLC

Team	1	2	3	Final F
Lamar	25	25	25	3
Abilene Christian	22	17	21	0

Photo by: Gary Rhodes

Volleyball falls to Lamar Cardinals at home, 3-0

10/10/2013 8:49:00 PM | Women's Volleyball

Box Score

ABILENE – Abilene Christian volleyball dropped a three-set decision to the visiting Cardinals of Lamar University Thursday night at Moody Coliseum action by scores of 25-22, 25-17 and 25-21.

The loss was the Wildcats' third straight, dropping them to 5-10 overall and 1-6 within the conference, while the Cardinals improved to 5-14 and 3-4.

ACU hit .137 for the match, generating 34 kills on 102 attempts, but made 20 errors on top of being aced on six occasions. The Wildcats also were outblocked by an opponent for the first time in six matches as the Cardinals made 9.0 stops at the net, while ACU had 5.0 led by freshman Lexi Mercier (1 solo, 2 assists).

Lamar did slightly better on the attack in finishing with a .202 hitting percentage. Cardinal Sierra Whittaker led all players with 12 kills and Megan Schwartz added nine to go along with a .571 hitting percentage and 15 digs.

Jennifer Loerch led the Wildcats with nine kills followed by Mercier and Erica Lambert with eight.

ACU was in position to take the lead during the latter stages of all three games tonight only to come up short each time. In game one, the Wildcats allowed a 20-17 lead slip through their fingers as the Cardinals scored five of the next six points to go up by one at 22-21. An attack error by Schwartz would give ACU a quick reprieve as it tied the score at 22-22, but Lamar came right back with three consecutive kills. Two were from Schwartz and the last by Cortney Moore, who finished the night with six.

ACU stayed close throughout the second game and used a nice, little run to close its deficit to two points at 19-17. But on the very next possession, setter Sarah Siemens was charged with one of her five ball-handling errors, which paved the way for Lamar's game-ending 6-0 run.

ACU led by as many as three points and trailed by as many as five during the early-to-middle stages of game three, but was very much still alive and trailing only by two points heading into the home stretch. Back-to-back scores by the Wildcats trimmed Lamar's lead to 22-20, but then a bad set made it a 23-20 game and a solo block by Chelsea Grant (3 solo, 1 assist) brought Lamar to match point.

Lambert followed with a kill to keep the Wildcats kicking a short while longer, but then Whittaker finished it with her fifth kill of the set.

The Wildcats return to action Saturday at 2 p.m. vs. Sam Houston State.