BEAUMONT – It was a close call between three fabulous performances, but Chelsea Grant was awarded the Most Valuable Player honors  after the Lamar University volleyball team went on to win the Lamar Invitational Saturday after knocking out Marist 3-0 (25-21, 25-18, 25-22) at McDonald Gym in the event finale.
 
Cortney Moore and Tomar Thomas each had arguments for the top spot, but each was named to the all-tournament team along with various players from other teams in the tournament.  It ended with LU finishing the tourney with a perfect 3-0 record, UAB was 2-1, Marist 1-2 and Texas Southern 0-3.
 
For LU, it is the first time it has started a season 3-0 since 2001, when the Cardinals ran through six straight without ever dropping a set. It opened the 2015 campaign with a four-set win over Texas Southern and straight-set victory over UAB Friday night.
 
Chelsea Grant recorded 26 kills and 2.60 kills per set, second on the team to Moore's 29 and 2.90, and had a tournament-leading 1.50 blocks per set average on 15 kills. Her kills numbers ranked fifth in the tournament and Moore's ranked tied for second.
 
Freshman Tomar Thomas was welcome addition with a .400 hitting percentage- which ranked second in the Lamar Invitational.  She had 21 kills, ranks third on the team, and only three errors in 25 attacks.
 
"Tomar Thomas is special and for her to come in and give us that as a freshman is phenomenal.  When you put her in, she kicks it into gear and goes," said Edwards. "Really our entire freshman class is special. We put Murielle Hlavac in for some situations and she gets it done.  The same could be said for Erin Pequeno who came up huge for us too."
 
As a team, the Cardinals hit for a .312 average with 37 kills only eight attack errors in the match Saturday. They hit a match-high .500 in the first set and .407 in the second.
 
Marist, which hit for .198 on the day, pushed Lamar early in the match taking a lead in the first set and holding it until Big Red was able to tie it at 14-14. The Red Foxes held as big a lead as four (13-9) after an attack error that forced Edwards to call a timeout.
 
After the timeout, the Cardinals went on a 6-1 run to tie the game. Eventually, they would work out of the 13-9 hole and grab a five-point lead at 21-16.
 
The second set was reversed when Thomas put down a kill that gave LU a 13-9 lead, but it never let MC get within two points.
 
The final game was much tighter and had 12 ties between the two teams.  LU jumped out to a 3-0 lead, but Marist tied it at 6-6 on a kill by Kelsey Ediger- also named to the all-tournament team. Both teams battled back-and-forth until Lamar was able to get a three-point run on a Grant kill, Lauren Stahlman ace and MC attack error to close it out at 25-22.
 
Moore led the Cardinals with 10 kills, was second for all players to Kelsey Lahey's 11, on 18 attacks and two errors, and Thomas finished behind her with nine kills and one error. Grant had eight kills and Autumn Taylor had six.  Grant also had two blocks in the match, one behind Nicole Parish.
 
Stahlman accounted for a team-leading 17 digs, ahead of Taylor's eight and Haley Morton's six.  Morton led the team with 21 assists and Ashley Ellis finished behind her with 11.
 
"We're getting really good set locations out of our setters, and they are doing a nice job with our offense," said Edwards.
 
Amanda Schlegel led Marist with 32 assists, Lexi Millington led with 12 digs and both Ashton Korona and Liz Gassman each had two blocks apiece.
 
"I like a lot of the things we are doing right now. I think we have plenty of room to improve.  We have some younger kids that are really starting to push some of the older kids.  The older kids will quickly recognize once place they can make changes is in serve receive," said Edwards.
 
"We've got pretty even production throughout where last season we were really middle dominate," he said. "A lot of that has to do with ball control and the fact that we are able to throw some pretty quick stuff at teams that force them to deal with us being in system, that is a credit to Lauren Stahlman and our outsides for they are playing in serve receive."
 
The Cardinals open the road portion of their schedule on Tuesday at 6 o'clock when they travel to Rice before heading to Texas State for the Delta Zeta Classic.