April 24, 2010

Box Score

BEAUMONT - Although it got there in somewhat bizarre fashion, Lamar University's baseball team is now in position to duplicate last weekend's feat of sweeping a Southland Conference series.

The Cardinals moved to 2-0 on the weekend against UTSA by coming within one of their season hit high with 16 Saturday afternoon and by surviving an impressive five-home-run barrage by the visiting Roadrunners in a wild 13-9 victory witnessed by a crowd of 518 in Vincent-Beck Stadium.

The Roadrunners, who lost their sixth-straight game, matched the Cardinals' 16 hits as they added four doubles to their five homers, one each by Ryan Rummel, Ryan Dalton, Ryan Hutson, Daniel Rockett and Brett Aquilar.

The Cardinals, who stretched their season-long winning streak to seven games, did not go deep, but they did benefit from one double each from Quentin Luquette, Cameron Campbell, Kevin Roebuck and Ryan Meade and a triple by Roebuck to go along with 11 bases on balls issued by six Roadrunner pitchers.

Luquette finished with three hits for the Cardinals, while Andy Mena, Campbell, Roebuck, Pablo Salinas and Ted Zentek had two hits each. Mena drove across three runs, and Luquette had two RBIs.

Lamar starter Eric Harrington moved to 7-1 on the season despite giving up four of the Roadrunner homers, including an unlikely three in the sixth inning. Fortunately for Harrington and the Cardinals, Dalton's 10th homer of the season, Hutson's ninth and Rockett's second were also solo blasts.

Harrington yielded 13 of the Roadrunner hits and struck out only one in 5.1 innings. He departed while clinging to a slim 8-7 lead, but the Cardinals scored the game's next four runs to regain some separation.

Brandon Chambers pitched the final 2.2 innings to earn the first save of his Cardinal career.

Coach Jim Gilligan's Cardinal will take records of 26-15 for the season and 11-9 in the SLC into Sunday's 2 p.m. series finale. The Roadrunners will enter the game with respective records of 13-23 and 4-16.