Final Stats

BEAUMONT, Texas - From the very first pitch, the Texas A&M offense flexed its muscle and jumped on the Lamar baseball team in a 12-3 win Friday night at Vincent-Beck Stadium in Southland Conference play, and set up a potentially crucial rubber match for Saturday.

Lamar fell to 14-16 overall and the loss evened the two teams to a 4-7 league record as both are fighting to claim a spot in the Southland Conference Tournament. The win improved Corpus Christi's overall record to 13-13.

Saturday's rubber match is slated for 1 o'clock and can be heard at LamarCardinals.com. After the game, Big Red will be in attendance dressed as a bunny and hiding eggs with children in attendance.

The Islander leadoff batter Tyler Ware crushed the first pitch he saw to the right center wall and scored soon after when Jordan Lee singled up the middle. That run was the first of seven that Corpus Christi was able to push across in the first three innings.

Lamar trailed 5-0 in the middle of the second, but Kevin Santana cut that lead to 5-2 on a two-run blast over the left field wall that scored Kyle Markum, who reached on leadoff single to center field.

Following the first scoreless inning (fourth) for the Islanders, Markum scored again on a wild pitch. He led off the bottom of the fourth with a double to left center, took second on Jake Nash's groundout to the right side and scored when Trevor Belicek uncorked a wild one to the back stop. The run made it 7-3.

Lamar went through six pitcher and the game, and started Danny Fernandez (4-3), who took the loss. Fernandez worked two innings and gave up five runs, four earned, on four hits and one walk. As a staff, Cardinal pitchers walked nine Islanders and hit another.

Galen Andrew worked one frame and gave up two scores on three hits. Brett Brown gave up two runs on three walks in an inning. Eric Foshee was scoreless in one inning of work.

Travis Moore pitched 2.2 innings and gave up one run on three hits and a walk. Brent Janak finished the game and gave up two.

Belicek (3-3) grabbed the win in seven innings of worked, and mowed through the lineup with 11 strikeouts. Kevin Landgrebe and Dalton D'Spain each pitched scoreless inning, D'Spain allowed one hit.

Markum continued his hot stretch with two hits and two runs on the day. Reed Seeley, Brandon Provost, Santana, Justin Eckols and CJ Moore all recorded hits.

Lamar will wrap up its eight-game home stand on Tuesday when it hosts Grambling State at 6 o'clock Tuesday night, and then heads to McNeese State for a Southland Conference set on Friday.