Lamar sports information

BEAUMONT — The Lamar Cardinals extended their home court winning streak to 39 straight games with an 81-76 victory over Sam Houston State in Southland Conference action on Saturday afternoon.

With the win, the Cardinals improve to 19-5 overall and 12-1 in Southland play, while the Bearkats fall to 13-10, and 8-5 in Southland play.

“We knew that we were going to play a really good team, because when we played them at their place it was a 10-point game,” remarked head coach Robin Harmony. “We were up by 10 twice and they made a run back at us, but we kept our composure and did what we needed to do to get the W.”

The Cardinals had five players score in double-figures in the contest led by Miya Crump with 22 points. Moe Kinard followed with 17 points. Jadyn Pimentel, Chastadie Barrs, and Umaja Collins rounded out the double-figure scorers with 15 points, 13 points, and 12 points respectively.

Lamar shot 41.3 percent from the floor for the game. LU forced the Bearkats into 19 turnovers in the contest.

In the third quarter of the contest, Lamar’s Barrs set the LU career assists mark. She has 657 in her career. The previous record was held by Ramona Jones at 653. Barrs also recorded six steals and now has 600 career steals. She is 25 steals away from setting the career NCAA steals mark.

Kinard hit two three-pointers in the contest and is tied for the most threes in LU school history with 204. She is tied with Jenna Plumley.

With the win today, coach Robin Harmony has now won 110 games in her career at LU, the second most all-time.

Lamar came out of the gate with five quick points against the Bearkats as Kinard hit a three and Collins layup. LU continued to hold the lead but the Bearkats started chipping away. An Amber Leggett layup tied the game at 9-9. The game would be tied a few more times in the half and a layup by Jenniffer Oramas put the Bearkats ahead 18-16. Sam Houston slowly grew the lead to seven, 28-21, after one quarter of play.

In the second quarter, Lamar picked up its defensive play and limited Sam Houston to four points for most of the quarter. With LU down six, 32-26, the Cards slowly chipped away at the lead and a fast break layup by Kinard put LU ahead 33-32. Lamar continued to extend its lead and grew the lead to 44-34 after a Barrs layup with 1:37 left in the first half. Sam Houston had an answer for Lamar as they trimmed the lead back to two, 44-42, heading into halftime.

Big Red came out of halftime and over the first three minutes of the quarter grew its lead back to five points, 49-44, after a layup by Barrs. Following Barrs layup, the Cards extended the lead to 12 points, 58-46, after a layup by Crump. Again, the Bearkats battled back and trimmed the Cardinals lead down to four, 60-56, after a layup by La’Sha Haynes. LU followed by growing its lead back to seven, 68-61, on a layup by Pimentel to end the third quarter.

Sam Houston battled back and a layup by Dominique Maxwell put the Cards lead down to two, 68-66, with 9 minutes to go in the contest. Following the layup, neither team scored for a two-minute stretch and a pair of free throws by Barrs put LU ahead by four, 70-66. Sam Houston continued to battle and tied the game at 74 after a three by Jaylonn Walker. On the next possession for the Cards, Collins grabbed an offensive rebound and put it back putting the Lamar ahead, 76-74. Following the layup by Collins, LU did not trail again. Lamar came away with an 81-76 victory over Sam Houston State.

The Cardinals return to action on Wednesday when they host Incarnate Word at the Montagne Center. Tipoff is set for 7 p.m. The contest against UIW is Play 4 Kay — Breast Cancer Awareness game.