IOWA CITY, Iowa – It was a rough day from an attacking standpoint for the Lamar University volleyball team Friday as it lost in straight sets to both South Dakota (18-25, 12-25, 11-25) and Iowa (19-25, 14-25, 23-25) in the opening day of the Hawkeye Invitational at the Carver-Hawkeye Arena.
 
In both matches combined, the Cardinals (0-11) finished with a negative attack average after finishing with 46 kills to 50 errors. Their best match of the day was against the host-Hawkeyes (9-2) with one more kill than error (26-25) and a .010 hitting average in the contest.
 
Despite the struggles in both matches, Big Red did show life and gave Iowa a fight for the third set of that match, and forced Iowa to get kills from Reagan Davey and Ashley Mariani to break a 23-23 tie and end the match.
 
Lamar was never down by more than three in the set, and took the lead with possibly one of its best runs of the season. Down 13-12, Murielle Hlavac powered one to the floor to tie it, and Tomar Thomas put LU up 15-13 with back-to-back aces from the end line. Kasey Reuter tried to answer, but was denied at the net by Ivette Dim and Amy Hollowell. Dim notched the last score of the five-point run on a kill, assisted from Haley Morton.
 
Iowa was able to tie it at 18-18, but the Cardinals again grabbed a lead after a service error from Loxley Keala and an attack error from Reuter. Unfortunately, the Hawkeyes were able to get the set win with a strong 7-3 finish.
 
For the 10^th-straight match, Chelsea Grant finished the contest with the most kills for Big Red, eight, and also added the highest attack percentage, .125. Hlavac grabbed six kills and was followed by Amy Hollowell (5), Thomas (4), and Dim (3). Thomas recorded the only two aces in the match.
 
Iowa's leader in kills, Jess Janota tied Grant in the category. Five other Hawkeyes finished with five or more kills, and totaled 41 as a team.
 
For LU, Morton recorded 20 assists, and she and Lauren Stahlman tied for the team best in digs (8).
 
The Cardinals had their worst hitting performance of the season, and first negative attack match under head coach Alan Edwards, in the first match of the day. LU finished with 20 kills and 25 errors for a -.054 attack percentage and 6.66 kills per set. Lamar earned only 23 points in the match, 7.66 a set.
 
South Dakota (10-1) served tough and issued the Cardinals eight service aces, the most against LU in three sets. Audrey Reeg and Anne Rasmussen each had three in the contest.
 
Grant, who broke her streak of nine-straight matches with 10 or more kills, had six kills in the match – which led the Cardinals. Hollowell and Thomas had four kills apiece and Dim and Hlavac had three each.
 
Big Red finished with 30 digs, led by Hollowell and Lauren Stahlman (7). Hlavac had six digs and Nicole Parish and Kelly Crow both had three. Haley Morton led the team with 14 assists.
 
Reeg led all players with 10 kills and a .129 attack percentage. Elizabeth Loschen had eight kills and Rachel Schmidt had seven kills. As a team, USD earned 39 kills and had a .299 attack percentage. The Coyotes earned 53 points and averaged 17.6 a set.
 
The Cardinals get a chance to rematch with the Coyotes, first team they'll face again this season, at 1 p.m. Saturday. That match will mark the end of the non-conference slate for LU, which opens league play Thursday at Southeastern Louisiana.