Lamar sports information

BEAUMONT — The Lamar women’s basketball team clinched a share of the Southland Conference regular season title on Saturday afternoon as they defeated Stephen F. Austin, 62-46, at the Montagne Center.

The win for the Cards was its 41st straight at the Montagne Center. LU can claim the outright Southland title next Saturday with a victory or loss by SFA next week.

With the win, LU improves to 23-5 on the season and 16-1 in Southland play, while SFA falls to 23-5 and 14-2 in Southland play. Lamar forced the Ladyjacks into 29 turnovers in the contest. Lamar shot 42 percent from the floor in the win and recorded 19 steals. LU scored 31 points off SFA turnovers.

“We got up on them and forced them to play faster than they wanted to play,” head coach Robin Harmony said. “It really made a big difference because they couldn’t run their offense. McNeese is one of those teams that is dangerous because they’re a big rival being 45 minutes away. They’re not going to come in here and just roll over for us, but we don’t want to share.”

Moe Kinard led the Cards with 23 points on 9-of-17 shooting from the floor. Chastadie Barrs followed with 14 points to round out the double-figure scorers. Barrs led Big Red with 10 rebounds and nine assists. Her double-double was her 12 of the season.

In a back and forth contest, a jumper by Miya Crump put the Cards down one, 5-4, with 6:41 left in the first quarter. A minute later, Barrs tied the game with a layup. After a 2-minute scoreless stretch, Kinard put the Cards ahead with a layup. Lamar held the Ladyjacks scoreless for a 4-minute stretch and after one quarter of play, LU led 14-8.

Opening the second quarter, both teams came out scoreless for a 3-minute stretch. The first bucket of the second quarter, came when Heaven Hamling hit a three-pointer trimming the LU lead down to three, 14-11. Lamar was held scoreless in the second quarter for a four minute and 55-second span and a jumper by Kinard gave LU the lead 16-15.

Following the jumper by Kinard, LU slowly started expending its lead. Two minutes after Kinard’s jumper, Briana Laidler got a pass from Jadyn Pimentel and hit a layup, putting LU ahead 23-17. The Ladyjacks trimmed the lead down to two, before LU extended the lead back to four, 25-21 heading to halftime.

Coming out of halftime, LU slowly grew the lead to eight points as a steal by Barrs turned into a fast break layup for her putting LU ahead 31-23. The lead grew to double-figures, 39-28, after Pimentel recorded a steal and Ashlan Miles hit a layup. By the end of the third quarter, Big Red’s lead had grown to 18 points, 50-32, after a Kinard layup.

LU stretched the lead to 20, 52-32, after a jumper by Kinard opened the fourth quarter. After leading by 20, the Ladyjacks slowly started chipping away at the Lamar lead. The lead was down to 15, 52-37, after a Chanell Hayes three-pointer. Four minutes later, the lead was down to 13, 54-31 after a fast break layup by SFA. LU did not let SFA get any closer than 13 points for the remainder of the contest and LU came away with a 62-46 victory.

The Cards return to action on Saturday, March 9, when they host McNeese State in the Battle of the Border at the Montagne Center. LU will celebrate senior day prior to the game. All tickets for the contest against McNeese are $1.