RUSTON, La. – It was a tale of two tight matches, and the Lamar University volleyball team learned from the its first 3-2 loss (20-25, 14-25, 26-24, 25-19, 12-15) to ULM to take the second match 3-2 (11-25, 25-17, 18-25, 25-20, 15-10) versus host Louisiana Tech in the final day of the LA Tech Invitational on Saturday.
 
The Cardinals (7-4) dominated the fifth set of the day's second match with a .588 hitting percentage and 11 kills and one error.   Eleven of their 15 points came on kills. Louisiana Tech (5-5) led the final game 5-2 before LU turned it on and went on a five-point run to jump up 7-5. From there, there it scored two points for every one the Lady Techsters put on the board.
 
In the fifth set alone, Nicole Parish was perfect at 3-for-3 and Tomar Thomas and Chelsea Grant were both 2-of-4.
 
The Cardinals were dominated in the first set 25-11, but responded with a 25-17 win in the second set. They turned it from an 8-6 lead to a 15-9 lead and kept Louisiana Tech from getting any closer than four. After the intermission, Tech came back to make it 2-1, but a series of runs in the fourth set gave Lamar the 25-20 win.
 
For the third straight tournament, Chelsea Grant was named to the all-tournament team.  In the three matches in Ruston, she had a team-leading 2.85 kills per set rate and .492 hitting percentage. She also had 20 total blocks and a 1.54 per set rate.
 
Autumn Taylor was also named to the all-tourney team after her 1.55 kills per set and 1.36 dig per set mark.
 
For the match against Louisiana Tech, three Cardinals finished with 10 or more kills, Grant, Thomas and Nicole Parish.  Thomas, a freshman, had a team-leading 15 kills on 41 attempts, and Grant (11) and Parish (10) followed. Grant only had three errors and 19 attempts, which earned her a .421 hitting percentage.
 
Both Grant and Thomas had a best of seven blocks in the match and Lauren Stahlman had 20 digs.  Ashley Ellis and Haley Morton finished neck-and-neck with the 22 and 21 assists, respectively.
 
The team hit for a .194 percentage with four service aces and a total of 54 kills. It had 26 attack errors, 10 service errors and seven reception errors.
 
The Cardinals fell back 2-0 in the first match and mounted a comeback bid that would have netted them their fourth-straight win of the season, but a 5-2 run in the fifth set turned a 10-10  tie in the final set into a 15-12 Tech game and match victory. It was also the first five-set match LU had been in all season to that point.
 
Lamar battled back from a 10-8 deficit to make it 10-10 after a kill by Grant and attack error by ULM's Taylor Zaeske. The Cardinals jumped up 11-10 after Grant kill, one assist each to Morton and Ellis, and then out to 12-10 after Zaeske recorded another attack error.  The Warhawks closed out the game with five-straight points, two by aces, one by LU error and kills from Zaesky and Hope Pawlik.
 
Errors really hurt the Cardinal in the first two sets that it dropped, seven in the first set and six in the second. In the first game they hit for a .000 percentage with only seven kills in 26 attempts, and in the second they had eight kills in 27 attacks, which set them for a .074 average.
 
Facing a huge deficit, Lamar improved play in the third and fourth sets with only four errors (11 kills) in the third and one mishap (12 kills) in the fourth.
 
Grant led the team for a second-straight game in kills at 15, a season high for her, on 24 attacks and only two errors.  She finished the match with a team-high .542 hitting percentage. Senior Cortney Moore was second in kills for the match on a .208 percentage and freshman Thomas had eight kills on a .500 percentage. Taylor had seven kills on 34 attempts.  
 
Grant also had season-high nine blocks. Morton finished with a team-high 24 assists followed by 14 from Ellis. Stahlman had 18 digs in the match and Morton had 16.
 
Pawlik led the Warhawks had 20 kills, which is the first time LU has given up 20 kills to an individual all season, she had 50 attacks.  Zaeske had 17 kills and a .026 percentage on 28 attempts.
 
As a team, LU hit for .173 percentage with an average, seven service aces, 11 service errors and eight reception errors. ULM had a .175 percentage, eight service aces, 12 service errors and seven reception errors.
 
The Cardinals wrap up tournament season with the Cardinal Classic hosted at McDonald Gym that starts on Friday. Texas-Rio Grande Valley, Jackson State and Tulane will make voyages t