THIBODAUX, La.  – For the first time since 2011, Lamar University volleyball is heading to the Southland Conference tournament after their win over Nicholls, 3-0 (25-17, 25-19, 25-22). This victory also clinched a winning season for the Cardinals for the first time since 2009.
 
Lamar (15-13, 7-9 SLC) hit 31-11-87 (.230) on the afternoon with 16 aces and eight blocks. Lyric Jordan led the Cardinals with nine kills while Keeley Nellis and Maja Malinowska recorded four aces apiece. Annie Cathey returned from injury for Big Red and came up big with four blocks in the last two sets.

Nicholls (7-20, 2-14 SLC) finished the match with a hitting percentage of 12.9 percent (30-18-93) along with seven aces. The Colonels were let down by 18 attacking errors and ten service errors.
 
Both teams traded points early in the first set before the Cardinals reeled off an 8-1 run to build a lead they would not relinquish. Two aces from Taisha Rhone and four kills from Jordan led to the early advantage for Big Red.
 
Lamar came out on fire in the second set taking an early 10-4 lead which forced a timeout from Nicholls. The hosts failed to cut the deficit to less than three the rest of the way as LU did not trail past the first point of the frame.
 
Another close start in the third set was answered by another big run from Big Red as an 8-3 stretch pushed their lead to six late. They were able to stiff arm the Colonels the rest of the way en route to booking their ticket to the conference tournament.

Lamar finishes the regular season as the seven seed in the Southland and will start tournament play in Hammond, La. next Friday as they square off with two-seed Texas A&M-Corpus Christi at 1 p.m. The match will be streamed at ESPN+.