Box Score

BEAUMONT, Texas - Senior Anthony Holliday scored a team-high 20 points as the Lamar Cardinals pushed Sam Houston State to the brink Thursday evening at the Montagne Center but the Bearkats survived the scare. The Southland Conference's second-place team held on for a 67-61 decision. The loss ended Lamar's push for its first winning season since the 2011-12 campaign, while the Bearkats remain in the hunt for a share of the conference title.

The Cardinals end the year with a 15-15 overall record, and a 9-9 Southland mark. Sam Houston State heads into its regular-season finale with a 24-6 record and a 15-2 mark in league play.

"I couldn't be prouder of an amazing group of guys," said head coach Tic Price. "Tonight we fought with an amazing basketball team, a team that has a chance to win it all. We were with them every step of the way. We had some turnovers and that was our downfall. If we take care of the basketball, we put ourselves in a position to win the game, but they turned our (mistakes) into points.

"The turnovers were disappointing but our guys gave great effort tonight. They played very determined basketball. Our seniors are very special people. I love those guys," added Price.

Lamar shot 40 percent from the field, while holding SHSU to a 19-of-49 (.388) performance. The big difference came from beyond the arc where neither team was on fire but the `Kats knocked down eight three-pointers (.333), while Lamar converted just 4-of-13 (.308).

The rest of the stat sheet was even as both teams had two players in double figures, led by a player with 20 points (Holliday, and Jabari Peters for SHSU), both shot at least 70 percent from the free throw line and the Cards were only outrebounded by two.

Sam Houston did a better job of taking advantage of the Lamar turnovers. The Bearkats scored 25 points off the Lamar's 20 turnovers, while LU scored 17 points from 17 SHSU turnovers.

The Bearkats threatened to break the game open with just over five minutes remaining in the first half and leading by 10 points, but Lamar refused to quit. Sparked by a couple of Holliday three-pointers the Cards rattled off a 16-4 run taking a two-point lead with just over a minute remaining. SHSU reclaimed the lead with 10 seconds on the clock before the Cardinals recorded the final highlight of the half. With one tick left on the clock freshman Kevin Booze found sophomore Marcus Owens under the basket for an easy layup.

The second half was a game of runs. Sam Houston State would jump out to an eight-point lead, and the Cardinals would battle right back. Sam Houston's first eight-point advantage of the second half came before the 16-minute media timeout. Lamar trimmed that lead to a point with more than 10 minutes on the clock only to watch SHSU extend it back to seven.

After cutting the deficit back to a two possession game, the Bearkats got the lead back to eight following a DeMarcus Gatlin jumper and two free throws from Peters. Holliday followed by drawing fouls on consecutive possessions and made good on all four free throws to pull Big Red within four points, 60-56, with 1:10 remaining, but the Cardinals were unable to get any closer in the 2014-15 regular-season finale.

Junior Dontavious Sears came off the bench to score 13 points and pull down five rebounds, while senior Donovan Ross scored eight points and pulled down three boards. Classmate Tyran de Lattibeaudiere finished his LU career with a seven-point, seven-rebound effort.

-LAMAR-