BEAUMONT – Lamar University volleyball showed its ability in the second set and late in the fourth, but front-runner Texas A&M-Corpus Christi showed why it's in first when it downed the Cardinals 3-1 (16-25, 25-20, 12-25, 23-25) in Southland Conference action Thursday night at McDonald Gym.
 
The loss puts Lamar in need of a win Saturday against Incarnate Word – which fell in five at Houston Baptist – or a loss from Southeastern Louisiana at New Orleans to advance to the Southland Conference tournament for the first time since 2011.
 
The second set featured three lead changes and nine ties between the two teams. Lamar (6-21, 6-9 Southland) broke a 15-15 tie and jumped up 17-15 on a block from Dannisha House and Nicole Parish and service ace issued by Ashley Ellis. Mallory Moran cut it to 17-16 with a kill, but Parish answered with another. Morgan Carlson made it 18-17 with a kill, but again Nicole Parish took advantage to push it back out to two. Back-to-back kills from Brittany Gilpin and Chelsea Grant made it 20-18, but a couple of errors tied the set at 20-20.
 
Once it was tied at 20-20, the Cardinals responded with three kills from Amy Hollowell, Tomar Thomas and Murielle Hlavac and were helped by two errors from Corpus (19-7, 15-0) to end the set and tie the match at 1-1.
 
LU ended that set with an impressive .390 attack mark with 20 kills to only four errors, and also sided out at 75 percent. In the game, it held the Islanders to their lowest hitting mark of the night, .200.
 
Though Big Red never led in the fourth set, it was very close to claiming the game after it faced a 15-5 deficit. After the 10-point advantage was claimed by the Islanders, only twice could they extend a rally to two before the Cardinal sided out.
 
Lamar used a five-, four- and three-point rally to cut the big lead to just one for Corpus, 23-22. A service error by the Cardinals made it 24-22, Corpus. Parish gave Lamar another point with a kill that fell just inside the sideline, but the Islanders ended it with a kill from Moran.
 
For the match, the Cardinals hit for a .174 attack mark and allowed Corpus Christi – which only averaged 16.5 points earned a set – to hit .311. The number that really her the Cardinals Thursday was the 26 attack errors to the Islanders' 12. The two matched service aces and service errors, and LU only trailed by five in kills (59-54) and digs (67-62). 
 
Grant extended her double-digit kills streak to 15 with a 12-kill performance, matched by Hollowell. Murielle Hlavac – who claimed a double-double with 14 digs – followed with 10 kills. Gilpin led the match with 20 kills and a .419 attack percentage, she had just two errors.
 
Ashley Ellis finished with 21 assists, 11 short of reaching 2,000 in her career. She trailed Haley Morton's total by one Thursday. Hlavac led the way in digs, followed by libero Lauren Stahlman's 11.