Sept. 18, 2010
Box Score
BEAUMONT - Lamar University's inexperience and youth finally caught up to it on Saturday night in the championship match of the Lamar Volleyball Invitational as a mature Albany team was able to pull out close sets and pick up the 3-0 victory at McDonald Gym.
The Lady Cardinals fell to 5-7 with the loss, but did pick up the most important win of the tournament on Friday when they knocked off McNeese State 3-0 to pick up a Southland Conference victory. LU will continue SLC action with road matches at Nicholls and Southeastern Louisiana on Thursday and Saturday, respectively.
The Great Danes hit an efficient .265 as a team to pull out wins by scores of 25-21, 25-20 and 29-27. Albany, which benefitted from 11 Lamar services errors, improved to 8-4 on the year.
"Albany was more mature than us and made some great in-game adjustments," said LU coach Justin Gibert. "We shut down their top player, but they were able to get their outside hitters going and we didn't make adjustments quick enough."
With Lamar trying to extend the match in the third set, sophomore outside hitter Cynthia McCollum pounded down one of her four kills to square the set at 25 apiece. An attack error by Albany's Teresa Coppiellie gave LU a 26-25 lead, but the Great Danes would not give in.
Albany, which got 17 kills from Coppiellie and 11 more from Dunja Prgomet, scored four of the next five points to win the match. Tournament MVP Casey Wright was limited to seven kills and four blocks by Lamar.
Despite the loss of starting outside hitter Megan Schwartz, the Lady Cardinals were able to hang in the tournament behind the solid passing of Bailey Smith, Kaleigh Wright and Angel Colyar. The trio combined for 36 digs and got the ball to the LU setters all night.
"Those three did a phenomenal job of passing and keeping us in the match," noted Gibert. "I'm just really impressed with the effort they gave and I think we should have a lot of confidence going forward."
Sophomore middle blocker Jayme Bazile earned all-tournament honors by hitting .425 and notching 41 kills and 15 total blocks. She registered 10 kills and five blocks against Albany. Redshirt freshman Sierra Whittaker added a season-high 11 kills for Lamar.
All-Tournament Team
Casey Wright (MVP) - Albany
Laurie Gonzalez - Albany Traci Vandergrift - Albany
Jayme Bazile - Lamar
Bailey Smith - Lamar
Erin Huckaby - McNeese State
Lesley Mirarchi - University of Louisiana LAMAR
