SAN MARCOS – It was rough day for the Lamar University volleyball team after it dropped both matches it played to Big 10 program Indiana, 3-1 (25-21, 21-25, 18-25, 11-25),  and former Southland Conference member and host Texas State, 3-0 (25-21, 25-20, 25-15), in the opening day of the Delta Zeta Classic on Friday.
 
Lamar (3-3) started off the match against Indiana (4-1) strong with a first set win, fourth-straight match the Cardinals took the first set, but errors proved costly in the final three. In the first game, Lamar committed only two attack errors and four service errors.  As a team, it hit .308 after 10 kills in 26 attempts. 
 
The rest of the sets continued to see the errors add up. The second set had five attack errors, five service errors and five reception errors. The team hit .167 in the second set and fell to .000 in the third set and -.136 in the fourth.
 
The Cardinals were even in the kill/error ratio in the third game and had six miscues in the fourth set to only three kills. They lowered their service errors in the fourth to two, but still took three reception errors. LU had five service errors in the second and six in the third.
 
The first set went through nine ties and three lead changes before LU broke a 13-13 tie with a kill by Cortney Moore, assist by Haley Morton. The lead increased to four after a Moore and Amy Hollowell block gave the Cardinals a 22-18 lead.
 
Indiana tried to mount a comeback with a three-point run to make it 22-21, but LU survived it and finished it with its own three-point run.  Amy Hollowell put down a kill to make it 23-21, Moore, Nicole Parish and Hollowell blocked an attack from Chante George to make it 24-21, and the set point was won on a kill from Moore and assist by Ashley Ellis.
 
Set two was tied a 13-13 as well, and LU took the lead and upped it to 17-13 but the Hossiers used a five-point run to grab the lead back at 18-17. Eventually the Cardinals would tie it again at 18, but five Cardinal miscues gave IU five of the remaining seven points it needed to take the game.
 
Game three had nine ties and three lead changes, the final was an attack error from Moore that gave Indiana a 12-11 lead in which it would not surrender.  The final game was finished on an 11-point run that took a 14-11 LU deficit to a 25-11 loss.
 
Moore was the only Cardinal with double-digits in kills, 10, and had the highest attack percentage, .368.  The next highest was Chelsea Grant's at .188 on six kills and three errors.  Nicole Parish had her second highest kill output of the season at eight; she had four errors and 33 total attacks.
 
Morton finished the game with 13 assists and Ellis had 12.  Defensively, Lauren Stahlman had 11 digs and Autumn Taylor had seven.  Moore had the most blocks she's had all season at eight, all assisted, and Hollowell had six.
 
The match was the first meeting for Lamar University with the Big 10 program.
 
Against Texas State (3-3), Lamar hit for a .253 average with 37 kills and 13 errors in 95 total attacks.  It was led by Grant, who rebounded from the earlier game, to hit .833 with 10 kills and no errors and added two blocks. Taylor hit .368 with eight kills and one error in 19 attempts. Morton had 17 assists and Ellis had 14.
 
Texas State controlled most of all three sets, each one only had one tied and no lead changes.  Service errors hurt the Cardinals again the night cap with 11 errors compared to only two aces and eight reception errors.
 
LU returns to the floor on Saturday morning at 11 o'clock against Prairie View A&M before the night cap versus Texas Southern at 6 o'clock.