Sept. 20, 2005
Box Score
BEAUMONT, Texas - The Lamar University volleyball finally got to play in front of their home crowd Tuesday night, and they took full advantage of the opportunity, blasting their way to a 3-0 win over the Nicholls State Lady Colonels.
Game two really set the tone for the match, as LU pulled away from a close game, behind the strong serving of Ashley Todd. The freshman setter served 11 straight points, including four service aces, giving the Lady Cards a 25-10 lead. Lamar picked up game two 30-11, and had taking full control of the match.
Game three was similar to game two, as Lamar pulled away from a four-point game, eventually winning 30-17.
After a slow start to game one, the Lady Cards turned it on, rallying to win 30-28 in the opener.
After struggling with their serve early in the match and over the weekend at Northwestern State and Louisiana-Monroe, Lamar took control against Nicholls with strong serving. Head coach Justin Gibert was glad to see his team use their service game to take over the match.
I told the team that the serving woes we have been having are because of a lack of aggressiveness," he said. "When you stop being aggressive, bad things happen and that's what happened over the weekend. Tonight, serving aggressiveness paid off and kept them at bay. It kept them from getting into their offense and helped us to get into our offense. We struggled early in the match with our serve, but our serves hurt them later in the match."
The Lady Cardinals finished the match with 12 service aces and 11 service errors.
Offensively the Lady Cards were led by Buchi Okoh, who hammered down 14 kills with a .407 hitting percentage, while Molli Abel knocked down 11 kills with a .550 hitting percentage. Todd passed out a match-high 39 assists while Alyssa Parks collected 12 digs for Lamar.
The win snaps a six game losing steak for LU and improves their record to 2-12 overall and 1-2 in Southland Conference play. The Lady Cardinals will be in action again Friday night when they take on Texas State at 7:30 p.m. in the Montagne Center.
