May 31, 2010
2010 Selection Show Photo Gallery
BEAUMONT, Texas - Lamar University drew seventh-ranked TCU Monday as its first-round opponent for the Cardinals' 13th NCAA Baseball Championships appearance.
Texas Christian University, which is 46-11 on the season after winning last week's Mountain West Conference Tournament, will serve as host for the Fort Worth Regional, set for Friday through Monday. The Horned Frogs will host the 35-24 Cardinals in Friday's second game in Lupton Stadium at 7 p.m.
Second-seeded Baylor, which is 34-22 on the season, will take on No. 3 seed Arizona (33-22) in Friday's 2 p.m. regional opener. First-round losers will meet in a 2 p.m. elimination game on Saturday, while the Day 1 winners will clash at 7 p.m.
The Fort Worth Regional winner will advance next week to a Super Regional against the winner of the Austin Regional. Host Texas, Louisiana-Lafayette, Rider and Rice University are the Austin Regional participants.
Coach Jim Gilligan's Cardinals punched their NCAA Tournament ticket by staging a four-game sweep to the 2010 Southland Conference Tournament championship at Whataburger Field in Corpus Christi. The seventh-seeded Cardinals edged No. 2 seed Northwestern State 4-3 in their tournament opener, defeated sixth-seeded McNeese State 10-7 and 9-3 in their second- and third-round games and rolled over regular-season league champion Texas State 17-7 in Saturday night's championship game.
Cardinal center fielder Anthony Moore will head to Fort Worth with a little extra hardware - the SLC Tournament Most Valuable Player Trophy - in his belongings. Media members covering the event voted the award to the senior from Cedar Hill after he banged out 10 hits in 16 at-bats for a sizzling .625 average during the tournament. He scored five runs and drove in six, two each with his three home runs.
Lamar's junior catcher Joey Latulippe and freshman pitcher Jonathan Dziedzic joined Moore on the all-tournament team. Latulippe hit safely in all four tournament games (7-for-16), and he'll carry a six-game hitting streak into the Fort Worth Regional. Dziedzic struck out 10 batters in the Cardinals' 9-3 Game 3 victory over McNeese State, and he also earned a save in the first-round win over Northwestern State.
Lamar is 9-9 all-time against TCU. The last time the teams met was in a three-game series in Beaumont's Vincent-Beck Stadium during the 2000 season. The Cardinals won the series' bookend games by the scores of 10-6 and 9-5, and the Horned Frogs edged them 3-2 in the middle game.
Lamar's last NCAA Tournament appearance came in the 2004 Houston Regional hosted by Rice. The Cardinals dropped their opener 14-3 to Texas A&M, and the host Owls eliminated them 6-3 in the second round.
LAMAR
