SUGAR LAND, Texas – For the 16^th and final time under head coach Jim Gilligan, the Lamar University baseball team will head to the Southland Conference Tournament when the fourth-seeded Cardinals open the tourney with fifth-seeded Central Arkansas at 7 p.m. Wednesday night.
 
LU (35-17), which enters with its highest seeding since 2009 when it was again a four seed, also sits on the same side of the bracket as Southland Conference champion and top seeded Sam Houston State (37-19) and eighth seed Stephen F. Austin (27-28).
 
The Voice of the Cardinals Harold Mann will carry every game the Cardinals are in live on Newstalk KLVI 560 AM. For the second-straight season, every game of the tournament will be carried live with the league's Chris Mycoskie holding the play-by-play duties. It is accessible online at WatchESPN.com, plus on smartphones and tablets via the WatchESPN and ESPN app.
 
Big Red holds a 33-24 record in the SLC Tournament, and is on a quest for its fourth league tournament championship, most recent was 2010. It'll be the third time that LU is the fourth seed at the tournament, which they hold a 4-4 record.
 
Lamar finished with a 7-2 record over the teams on its side of the bracket this season, but is 0-4 against them in the tournament. Sam Houston holds a 3-0 record with a championship win in 208 and SFA is 1-0. UCA (28-25) and LU have never met in the postseason.
 
The first team on the docket for the Cardinals will be Central Arkansas. The Bears were swept by LU at Vincent-Beck Stadium, but they are a different team now and are back to being healthy. UCA enters the tourney with a sweep of second-seeded Southeastern Louisiana, which swept Big Red two weeks prior.
 
The Bears, who notched picked up three All-Southland Conference players, have won 10 of their last 12 contests. As a team, they hit for a .274 batting average led by second baseman Chris Townsend's .353 average. Townsend was an all-league pick along with third baseman Logan Preston and outfielder Tyler Langley.
 
Langley is the team leader with 40 runs scored and five home runs and Preston tops the program with 41 runs batted in. Brandon Montalvo sits in front of both of them with a .324 batting average.
 
On the mound, Cody Davenport (5-2, 3.50 earned run average) has taken over as the top pitcher, and is projected to be there starter for the tourney opener. He pitched the second game of the series at LU, and worked seven innings and gave up four earned runs (six overall) on eight hits and five walks. LU narrowly won that game 7-6.
 
On the hill for the Cardinals, Lamar is expected to throw righty Will Hibbs (9-2, 3.20), who leads the Southland Conference in wins. He looks to get back in the win column for the first time since April 29 when he defeated Incarnate Word. He was voted as a pitcher on the league's first team.
 
Hibbs has pitched 90 innings this season, a career high and most on the team, in 16 games this season. He is 10 strikeouts away from grabbing the 10^th spot on the season strikeout list as well as notching his 200^th career punch out.
 
Against UCA in the regular season, he hurled seven innings with two runs allowed on six hits.  He struck out eight batters in his first league win of the season.
 
SLC Hitter of the Year Reid Russell had a home run in each game, and it was a part of his five-game long ball stretch. He and first-team All-Southland shortstop Stijn van der Meer had great weekends. Van der Meer hit .545 with his lone homer and five RBI and runs scored. For the season, he leads LU with a .374 batting average.
 
Russell is hitting .363 on the year with 18 long balls, tied for a school record, and 62 runs batted in. He's scored 40 runs, only trailing Jake Nash's 46 and van der Meer's 44.
 
The Cardinals also placed catcher Bryndan Arredondo on the first-team list, and Nash was listed as a first baseman on the third team.
 
The winner of the contest will go on to face the winner of Sam Houston and Stephen F. Austin at 7 p.m. Thursday, and the losers of each game will play at noon Thursday.
 
The tournament is set up in similar fashion to the NCAA College World Series in that there are two brackets with the winners meeting for the championship. Unlike in Omaha, the bracket winners of the Southland tournament meet in a single game to decide the championship. The winner of the Southland tournament is the league's automatic qualifier for the NCAA tournament, which begins with regional play, June 3-5.
 
Tickets are available for purchase at the Constellation Field box office, by phone at 281-240-4487 and online at sugarlandskeeters.com. Online orders are subject to a $2 service charge per ticket. All-session tickets are $60 and single day tickets are $18. Students at Southland Conference institutions get in free with a valid student ID.