EDINBURG, Texas – Two teams that fell to nationally-ranked foes Tuesday will try to get back into the win column when Lamar University Baseball heads to UT Rio Grande Valley in Edinburg for a non-conference three-game set at the UTRGV Baseball Stadium, starting at 7 p.m. Friday night.
The Friday night contest can be seen on Spectrum Sports on channel 323 or 825 in Texas on Spectrum TV. The second game of the series is at noon on Saturday and the finale is at noon Sunday.
The Cardinals (6-3) fell at No.21 Texas, 9-5, while Vaqueros (8-1) fell 11-2 at No. 22 Houston. It was the first midweek competition of the 2017 campaign for both squads. Lamar held a 3-0 lead on the Longhorns early, but UT took advantage of several free passes and finished off the Cardinals.
Two Cardinals popped their first career home runs against the Horns, and both accounted for all five runs batted in. Freshman
Cole Coker blasted a three-run long ball to right field in the second inning, and junior
Stefanos Panayiotou belted a two-run shot to the same field in the sixth.
Big Red will stick with the top three starters on the hill it went to in the first two series of the season. Right-hander
Tanner Driskill (1-0, 1.38 earned run average) gets the ball Friday night, and will be faced off by righty Carter Johnson (2-0, 2.40).
Carson Lance (2-0, 3.00) and Andrew Garcia (2-0, 2.65) will go head-to-head Saturday afternoon. The finale will be battled out by LU's
Jace Campbell (1-0, 0.00) and Connor Grant (2-1, 3.86).
UTRGV – which has faced Prairie View and Texas Southern in its midweek series – hits at .316 clip and averages 7.8 runs per game. Jose Garcia leads the way with a .500 batting average (18-of-36), and is tied for the lead in home runs (2) with Danley Casey. Ivan Estrella follows with a .375 batting average, but tops the team with 13 runs batted in.
As a team, the Vaqueros hold 2.57 earned run average in 77.0 inning pitched.
Reid Russell and
Robin Adames are tied for LU's lead in average at .394, and Russell tops the team with 10 RBI and two home runs. The reigning league hitter of the week has nine runs.
Bryndan Arredondo has a .353 batting average.
The two programs have faced off 114 times before, and the Cardinals have a 70-44 all-time lead. Big Red has not made a trip Edinburg since 2015, when it was swept. The last win Lamar has at UTRGV was in 2013.
The trip rounds out a four-game road swing before its return home for a midweek contest against Rice, but it is the first of three-straight weekends away from Vincent-Beck Stadium.
