ABILENE, Texas – Abilene Christian had an efficient offensive showing and handed Lamar University a 3-0 (15-25, 21-25, 18-15) loss Saturday afternoon at the Moody Center in Southland Conference action.
 
The Wildcats (10-19, 9-5 Southland) put up a .310 attack percentage and accounted for more than 18 kills a set, 55 total, on 44 team kills, one service ace and 10 blocks. On the flip side, the Cardinals (6-20, 6-8) hit for a .103 attack mark, which tied its worst output of the league play dating back to the first match against Southeastern Louisiana.
 
ACU held the advantage in every set, but Lamar tried to rally back in the second set to tie the match and fell just short. The Wildcats had as big a lead as six at 16-10 and were able to maintain the advantage at 20-15, but kills from Carlyn Stella, Dannisha House and Chelsea Grant, along with an ACU attack error helped cut the deficit to three.
 
Lamar's Chelsea Grant moved her double-figure kills streak up to 14 matches with 13 kills on 39 attacks, she was followed by six from Tomar Thomas and four from each Nicole Parish and House. With Grant's kills, she upped her career total to 1,077, making her 19^th all-time at Lamar University. 
 
Ashley Ellis led Big Red with 16 assists and Haley Morton trailed close behind at 15. Defensively, libero Lauren Stahlman had 10 digs in the contest and Amy Hollowell led the team with four blocks. Grant also contributed three blocks.
 
The Cardinals came out slow struggling with a negative hit percentage on nine kills and 11 errors; they also sided out at only 40 percent in the first set. They vastly improved in the second with a .200 attack mark (13 kills, 5 errors) and a 62 sideout percentage.
 
Jacey Smith and Marybeth Sandercox led the Wildcats with 10 kills apiece, and Sandercox dominated with a .438 hitting percentage.
 
As a team, the Cardinals recorded 42 earned points with 34 kills, one service ace and seven team blocks.
 
Saturday's match was the final road contest of the regular season for Lamar, which hosts Texas A&M-Corpus Christi and Incarnate Word for the final matches of the season. LU plays the Islanders at 7 p.m. Thursday and the Cardinals at 1 p.m. Saturday.