Oct. 2, 2009
Box Score
Lauren Holdorff slammed home 15 kills with seven in the third set to lead Lamar to an impressive 3-0 sweep of UT Arlington at McDonald Gym Friday night.
Lamar improved to 7-7 on the season and 2-1 in Southland play as UTA dropped to 6-9 and 2-1.
In addition to her season-high in kills, the senior from Friendswood hit .650 for the match and was perfect on six swings in Lamar's 25-19 first set win.
After UTA tied the opening set at 18-18, the Lady Cardinals took the lead for good on a Holdorff kill and senior Kaci Brewer service ace. Another Holdorff kill two points later gave LU a 21-19 edge before sophomore Bailey Smith served the final four points which included a pair of UTA hitting errors and kills from Holdorff and freshman Wendy Krell to close it out. Krell finished with a eight kills
As close as set one was, the second was all Lamar after the 11th point. Brewer had consecutive aces before two kills from Holdorff and freshman Cynthia McCollum, along with an ace from Smith gave the home team a 14-7 lead en route to a 25-17 win.
The Lady Cards trailed 13-9 midway through the final set before a 5-0 run gave them a 14-13 lead. UTA briefly regained the lead with two points but an 8-0 LU stretch made it 22-15 and put the match out of reach. LU claimed the set 25-18.
"We played championship-level ball tonight," LU head coach Justin Gibert said. "We were on tonight.
"Lauren Holdorff was off the charts and showed why she is one of the top players in the league right now. Our whole team played great, we had great energy and we played really hard tonight. We made defensive plays that we hadn't been making all year that are just effort-based plays."
Gibert was quick to point out that senior setter Adrianne Meengs ran the offense with precision and helped put pressure on the Mavericks all night.
"She (Meengs) was very, very good and distributed the offense well and scored a lot as well.. And Bailey Smith served lights out and got tons of points for us."
Meengs finished with 26 assists and seven kills with zero errors. Smith's jump serve - which resulted in three aces - caused problems for the UTA back row and led to numerous scoring chances for Lamar. LU finished with ten aces, one shy of their season-high of 11 that came in last Friday's home win over Sam Houston State.
Lamar will now turn its attention to a dangerous Texas State squad that dropped a five-set match at Sam Houston on Thursday night. The Lady Cardinals took a five-setter from the Bobcats in the SLC Tournament championship a year ago after splitting their home-and-home series.
"They are not going to want to lose two on this road trip and are going to work really hard," Gibert said. "We need to bring the same intensity as we did tonight and if we play hard we will have the opportunity to pick up a win."
First serve at McDonald Gym is set for 3 p.m. on Saturday.
