CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas – After trailing by six runs in the second and fifth innings, the Cardiac Cardinals of the Lamar University baseball team refused to quit as they have all season. On Sunday, they turned 7-1 and 12-6 deficits into a 15-12 win at Chapman Field to claim a sweep of Texas A&M-Corpus Christi in Southland Conference action.
 
The win clinched LU's fourth-straight weekend sweep, third in Southland Conference action, and extended the nation's longest active win streak to 15 games.
 
Trailing 12-6 after the fifth inning, Lamar (25-7, 10-2 SLC) pushed two across in the sixth and five in the seventh to grab its first lead since the second inning. The Cardinals added two more in the ninth for insurance.
 
The big blows in the seventh were three doubles and a single from the middle of the Cardinal order. Van der Meer got the inning started with a one-out single through the right side, which pushed his hit streak to 22 games and his on-base streak to an even 30.
 
The senior shortstop advanced to second when Jake Nash was walked and took third on a fielder's choice from Bryndan Arredondo. The first extra base hit was from Reid Russell, who pushed across a team-high five runs in the game. His seventh inning double scored two in Arredondo and van der Meer.
 
Cutter McDowell followed with a single to right field that scored Russell and cut the Islander lead to 12-11. Robin Adames tied it on a double that sent across McDowell, and then scored the go-ahead run when Jacoby Middleton laced a triple to left center.
 
"It shows a lot about our kids to comeback from being down six, twice," said head coach Jim Gilligan. "It's good to believe that you can do something like that, and we've done it several times now. We really feel like we're not really ever out the ball game because of the meat that we have in our lineup."
 
Of the nine innings, the Big Red lineup scored in six and had two or more in five of those.  
 
The Cardinals ended the seventh inning with a 13-12 lead and held it there until Corpus Christi pitching loaded the bases and walked Robin Adames for a 14-12 LU lead. The final run of the game was scored on Middleton's sacrifice fly to center that scored McDowell from third base.
 
The two runs in the sixth were on singles from Russell and McDowell. Russell singled through the left side and sent home Nash from second and McDowell pushed across Arrredondo from the same with a single up the middle.
 
Russell, who scored two runs, finished his day with five RBI on three hits in six at-bats. Nash also finished the day with multiple RBI, his three were on one hit in three tries. McDowell scored one in the contest on a 2-of-5 day with two RBI.  Adames was the other Cardinals with a multi-hit game, two in three at-bats.
 
Lamar jumped on the board early in the first inning with a fielder's choice to third base from Russell, which scored Nash from third.  Nash reached on a hit by pitch and advanced to third on a single from Arredondo.
 
It did not take long for the Islanders to answer, and in full force after two homers netted them seven runs.  Heading into the game, the LU pitching staff had only allowed five homers on the year and none of them were in the same contest.
 
Nick Anderson led off the inning with a double to right and scored in the next at-bat when Justin Perales doubled to the same side. LU starter Jayson McKinley struck out Brian Deaver, but hit Cullen Jozwiak to put runners on first and second.
 
Dawson Yates laced the first homer of the inning to right center field to put Corpus Christi up 4-1. McKinley induced a groundout from Scott Balfantz for the second out, but allowed a solo jack Zack Gibson to put the Islanders on top 5-1. Casey Thomas singled through the right side and advanced to second base when Zacarias Hardy reached on an error.
 
McKinley was lifted for Brett Brown, and he was met by a bases-clearing triple to left center from Anderson, which put Corpus up 7-1.
 
"You have to give credit to Corpus, they did a very good job (McKinley)," said Gilligan. They started getting in on his changeup and we had a couple of bad plays mixed in there as well."
 
Russell launched a solo shot to right that capped off a two-run third inning for the Cardinals. Stijn van der Meer led off the frame by reaching on an error to third base. He advanced all the way to third on a wild pitch and passed ball, and scored on a groundout to the left side from Jake Nash.
 
Two batters later, Russell crushed his homer on a 1-1 count pitch and notched his 11^th homer of the season. He has the most long balls in a season LU has seen since Michael Ambort had 11 in 2007. Ambort holds the school record of 18 dingers, set in 2005.
 
LU chipped away at the lead with another three in the fourth, capped by a double to right field from Nash.  He scored Chaneng Varela and Middleton, on batter after van der Meer drew a bases-loaded walk.
 
Only up by one in the middle of the fifth, the Islanders got to Cardinal pitching when seven-straight reached base- five on hits- to push across five in the inning.  The innings was ended on a double-play and fly out.
 
McKinley worked 1.2 innings for the Cardinals and allowed seven runs, five earned, on five hits and no walks. Brett Brown relived him for 1.1 scoreless frames on two hits and two walks. Josh Crain pitched an inning with just one hit allowed in four batters faced.
 
"I though Crain was one of the big keys to the game," said Gilligan. "He came in and threw up a zero after they had that big inning. It allowed us to chip away some and get back into it."
 
Jimmy Johnson worked one inning and gave up the five-spot fifth before Fernando Martinez took the hill and really slowed down the game for the Cardinals. He pitched three perfect innings and struck out seven batters, two looking.
 
"I put Jimmy in there really hoping to get three zeros out of him. His ERA got touched up some, but he finished the inning, which was big because they still had some runs out there," said Gilligan. "Fernando cruised out there. He acted like Corpus hadn't been hitting the entire time."
 
The win streak is five-game short of the school record of 20 set in 1979, and is two short of matching the country's longest win streak of 17- set by No. 1  Florida earlier in the year. The Cardinals will look to keep it going Wednesday when they head over to Baylor for a 4 o'clock first pitch.