BEAUMONT – The Cardinals battled through most of the match, including a rally that won them the second set, but the 2015 Southland Conference champion Texas A&M-Corpus Christi outlasted Lamar University in its season finale 3-1 (21-25, 26-24, 15-25, 21-25) at McDonald Gym Thursday afternoon in league action.
 
The high point of the match for the Cardinals (14-16, 4-12 Southland Conference) was that second set when they battled back from an 18-11 deficit to take the game 26-24. That rally started with redshirt-freshman Zahria Scott taking the endline after Autumn Taylor slammed down a kill on an assist from Haley Morton.
 
Scott aced Madison Wood and worked the Islanders (27-4, 16-0) out of system with the next two sets for attack errors from Ivy Baresh and Madeleine Doud, which left the score at 19-15, Corpus Christi- which captured the next three out of four points to get it back to 23-17.
 
Lamar ran the score to 24-20 when Morton took over the endline and never surrendered it. Taylor recorded back-to-back kills and Chelsea Grant followed her with one.  Grant joined Monica Strohschein to tie it at 24-24, and after Grant's second kill of the run she joined Taylor for a block that ended the set.
 
As has been an issue all season long for Lamar, the third set proved to be a tough one. The two teams were close all the way to a 10-9 Islander advantage, but it ran on a 4-0 surge and eventually a 12-2 run to hold a 22-11 lead. Lamar tried to comeback, but it was just too late.
 
"We came out of the locker room slow again, and that is just unacceptable," said head coach Alan Edwards. "The difference in today's match was the fact that they (Corpus Christi) could stay focused a longer than we could. We kept putting ourselves in position to win, just couldn't close it out."
 
The fourth set was tight throughout, but tied at 18-18 the Islanders were able to put away five-straight points. From there, Texas A&M-Corpus Christi was able to hold off the Cards.
 
"It was a continuation of what we've been all year. I felt like at times today and at times at their place, we performed like we have the physical ability to win a conference championship, and that is a team (Islanders) that just wrapped up a 16-0 season."
 
LU hit .412 in the first set and did everything it tries to do in each set offensively, but the Islanders were able to do just a little more. The Cardinals had 15 kills in the game with just one error, but AMCC had 19 and five.
 
For the match, the Cardinals hit .199, led by senior Cortney Moore and junior Grant, who hit for .409 and .308, respectively. Both joined Taylor for 12 kills apiece, which led Lamar. Murielle Hlavac had five kills, Carlyn Stella three and Haley Morton two.
 
Morton was the team's leader in assists and added in six digs. Junior Lauren Stahlman topped the Cardinals with 17 digs, followed by Hlavac.
 
The match rounded out the 2015 campaign and was designated as Senior Day to honor LU's seniors, Moore and Jenna Jackson.  Jackson started the match and contributed five assists.
 
"I thanked our seniors and told them how much I appreciate them and what they've done. Hopefully what we were able to take from today is the fact we are physically pretty good. Now we just need players to set up and be leaders and hold each other accountable."