Lamar sports information

BEAUMONT — With the official start of the 2018 campaign just two days away, LamarCardinals.com is taking time to inspect this season’s squad on a position-by-position basis.

Setters

Lamar’s two setters, Moerani Maire and Kyla Rogers, are both new to the program; Molly Shade left the program and Haley Morton graduated, taking 92.9 percent of 2017’s assists. But incoming junior college transfer Maire was a member of the Tahitian national team and Second Team All-District for San Jacinto College, and Rogers racked up 1,100 career assists in just two years on the varsity team at South Grand Prairie High School. Rogers averaged 5.2 assists per set and was the 2016 All-District 7-6A Setter of the Year.

Defensive specialists

Lamar has a mix of veterans and newcomers in its three liberoes for 2018. Fifty-one percent of the digs from 2017 return, but the loss of Amy Hollowell – now the graduate assistant for Lamar – and Kaitlyn Nutt and Haley Morton took a significant portion of Big Red’s defensive presence.

Zahria Scott is entering her fifth year with the team and had the best season of her Cardinal career in 2017, recording 87 percent of her career digs in her junior year.

Redshirted in 2017, Erin Pequeno is now in year four at LU. The Baytown native has appeared in 25 matches in her career and 66 total sets. She’s very precise in her role on the back line with just six reception errors in over 200 total attempts.

An incoming freshman, Alyssa Legette is also in the defensive running for LU. The Round Rock native played three seasons of varsity volleyball at Stony Point High School, appearing in 240 career sets with 677 digs, an average of 2.8 digs per set. She also was a sniper when serving, totaling 67 career aces with over a 90 percent serving percentage. Legette was a 2017 First Team All-District and Academic All-District member and a star in the classroom as well with a 4.3 GPA and an International Baccalaureate Diploma.

Middle blockers

70 percent of Lamar’s blocks from 2017 return in the form of Tomar Thomas, Dannisha House, Ivette Dim, and Bre’Ala Box. Iyaria Walker and Liz Eardly departed the team.

House has appeared in 44 matches in her career and 156 sets. She has 117 total blocks in her career, averaging .75 blocks a set, and was second on the LU squad last year with 49. She was also third on the team in total kills with 157 and fourth in kills per set, averaging 1.85.

A freshman in 2017, Box played in 18 matches, appearing in 60 total sets. She had 29 total blocks and averaged 1.57 kills per set, the fifth-most on the team. She was a three-time All-District honoree at Nimitz High School and the 2016 hitter of the year in her district. She was also the district’s blocker of the year in 2015.

Hitters

Because most of the offense comes from the hitters, a full eight members of the 2018 roster are hitters at either the outside or right side. Returnees include Thomas, Dim, Monica Strohschein, and Murielle Hlavac, four of Lamar’s five seniors this season. Almost 83 percent of Lamar’s kills from 2017 return.

Freshmen Kinsy Haschke, Mercedes Danrich, and Abigale Nash will also see playing time as a hitter, and so will junior college transfer Nina Pevic.

Thomas, a 2018 preseason All-SLC Second Team member, led the team and was second in the SLC in kills per set, averaging 3.66. She paced Lamar in total kills with 282 last year. Thomas was second on the team in attack percentage (.221) and service aces (15), and had 37 blocks, the fourth-most by a Cardinal.

Dim played in 60 sets last season to bring her career total to 191. The Houston, Texas, native has a career average of 1.65 kills per set and a .247 attack percentage, and 160 total blocks. Dim led the Cards in attack percentage (.278) and total blocks (65) last year.

Hlavac appeared in the most sets of any Cardinal in 2017, playing in 88. She started all 26 matches, and was second on the team in kills (199) and third in kills per set (2.26). Her 258 digs paced Lamar and assisted on 23 blocks while totaling 11 service aces.

Entering her fourth year with the team, Strohschein has played in 37 matches. She averaged 1.39 digs per set last season, including a stellar 14 digs in four sets against Stephen F. Austin. She has 11 career service aces.

Nash comes to Lamar with 957 career kills notched on her belt from her time at Sahuaro High School in Tuscon, Ariz., where she led her team to the Arizona state volleyball tournament each season, including a 2016 quarterfinals appearance. Nash is strong in several areas of her game, totaling 539 career digs and 109 service aces.

Danrich, a local phenom, comes to Lamar from Beaumont Ozen High School. The freshman was the team MVP at Ozen and played for the FMTVA Chiefs and BMT Raiders club volleyball teams.

Haschke, of Mont Belvieu accrued a 114-53 career record in her four years at Barbers Hill High School while appearing at the area level four times and making three regionals, including a 2015 regional finalist. She was a 2017 First Team All-District member, a GHVCA All-Star and SETCA All-Star, and a 2017 Vype Magazine Fab 50. She had 361 kills, averaging 3.5 kills per set, her senior year.

A native of Umag, Croatia, Pevic led Hutchinson Community College to a 2017 KJCCC Regional championship and an appearance at the 2017 NJCAA National Championship tournament. She appeared in 76 career matches, playing in 243 sets. She had 487 kills in two years, and accumulated 104 blocks.