Sept. 23, 2007

Box Score

BEAUMONT - The good news for Lamar University was it generated season-highs for shots and shots on goal. The bad news was the Lady Cardinals still found themselves on the short end of a 6-0 decision to visiting Grambling State in the program's home opener Sunday afternoon at Cardinal Stadium.

Lamar (0-6) will play at Rice University Friday at 7 p.m. before opening Southland Conference play at home October 5 at 7 p.m. against Central Arkansas. Grambling State, who posted a 1-0 win at Sam Houston State on Friday, improved to 2-5 on the season.

"I thought we played much better today than we have been," said Lamar coach Matthew Dillon. "We had some chances on offense, but we didn't capitalize. We let in a couple of soft goals, which are always tough to come back from.

"We continue to play hard and never quit. That's what you want to see as a coach. We'll just do what we do every Monday and that's watch film, see what we did wrong and try improve on it in practice as we get ready for the next game."

Grambling started the scoring in the 15th minute of the opening half. Ashley Baker scored the first of three goals on the game at 15:24. Chelsea Bonnville and Obafemi Alao each had assists on the goal.

Angelica Singh gave the Tigers a quick 2-0 lead with a goal at 23:16 with Aloa getting her second assist. Lamar goalkeeper Kelsie Binetti appeared to have a save, but the ball trickled past her into the goal.

The scored remained 2-0 at intermission. The Cardinals generated seven first half shots compared to 12 by Grambling.

Natasha Nzeakor opened the second half scoring for the Tigers when she netted a penalty kick at 51:14. Baker added her second goal of the game three minutes later. She found the back of the net on a sliding kick at 54:30 on a nice centering pass from Aloa, her third assist of the game.

Baker completed the hat trick with a goal at 67:13 on a pass from Bonnville, which was her second assist of the game. Alao closed out the scoring with a break away goal at 70:01.

Lamar attempted a season-high 19 shots and also set a season-high with six shots on goal. Grambling also had 19 shots, including 12 on goal. The Tigers committed seven fouls compared to three by the Cardinals. Lamar attempted nine corner kicks compared to three by Grambling.

Stefani Turner, a freshman from Corpus Christi, and Beth Squires, a freshman from Hurst, both had a team-high four shots off the bench for Lamar. Staci McGuire, Logan Matt, Kari Melancon, Yureli Gomez, Turner and Lauren Peterson each had one shot on goal.