ABILENE, Texas – Riding its four-game win streak in Southland Conference play, the Lamar University baseball team will try to stay when it heads to Abilene Christian for a three-game series, slated to start at 6 p.m. Friday at Crutcher Scott Field.
The second game of the series is scheduled for 2 p.m. Saturday and the finale at 1 p.m. Sunday afternoon. The Cardinals – who sit in sixth place – have taken their last four league games, including a sweep over Texas A&M-Corpus Christi at Vincent-Beck Stadium. Once the set is completed, LU (22-16, 9-9 Southland) will have just three series remaining in conference play, two at home.
The contest will be the first time in three weeks that the Cardinals had two days rest between their midweek game and weekend series. Tuesday the Cardinals fell to No. 9 LSU, 10-4, in Baton Rouge, but
Cutter McDowell had a special day at the dish with two home runs in a 3-of-5 game.
McDowell, now LU's leading hitter at .367, is 40-of-87 (.460) in his last 23 games. In that span, he has a team-leading 23 runs scored and 21 runs batted in. The senior has a .556 on-base percentage and is slugging at .747. For the season, he has 38 runs, tops on the team, and 24 RBI.
He lacks just two doubles to jump into LU's top 10 for doubles in a season.
Three other Cardinals hit above the .300 threshold,
Robin Adames (.331),
Reid Russell (.326) and
Bryndan Arredondo (.301), and Trey Silver's narrowly misses the mark at .299. Adames has the team's lead in RBI at 33, followed by Russell's and Silvers' 32. McDowell leads in slugging and on-base percentage.
As a team, the Cardinals are hitting at a .281 clip – fourth in the league - with an average of 6.2 runs per game, and have 109 extra base hits (73 doubles, three triples and 33 home runs). Abilene Christian is hitting a notch above the Cardinals at .282 – third in the league.
Russell Crippen leads the Wildcats (10-23, 1-17) with a .377 batting average, followed closely by Luis Trevino's .364 and Derek Scott's .331 marks. Scott tops ACU with 29 runs scored and Trevino with 30 RBI. Crippen has a .648 slugging percentage and .455 on-base percentage.
As a unit, the Wildcats score at a 5.4 runs per game pace with 97 extra-base knocks (70 doubles, four triples and 23 home runs).
Abilene hasn't announced its starting rotation for the weekend yet, but it was projected to start with lefty Nick Skeffington (1-2, 8.36 earned run average). Skeffington started the last two series-opening contests for the Wildcats, and has fired 14 innings with 13 earned runs allowed and 11 strikeouts. Drew Hanson (2-4, 5.94) is projected to be the Saturday starter. Hanson has a team-high 33 1/3 innings with 22 earned runs given up and 23 strikeouts.
Austin Lambright (0-1, 4.41) has 32 2/3 innings under his belt on the season, all with a team-high 37 strikeouts and 36 walks. Hansen and Lambright each have eight starts and Skeffington has four.
For the last three weekends, the Cardinals have rolled out
Carson Lance (5-4, 2.75) on Friday,
Jimmy Johnson (3-4, 3.07) on Saturday and
Jace Campbell (3-1, 3.22) on Sunday. Lance, who has been a part of every weekend rotation, has started nine games on the year with 55 2/3 innings. Johnson has 44 total innings on the season and Campbell - who has also started in every weekend on the year – has 44 2/3 frames.
The series wraps up a four-game stretch on the road before the Cardinals return to Vincent-Beck to open up a another four-game homestand that starts with Texas Southern at 4 p.m. Tuesday. Following that contest, Lamar will square off with Nicholls in a three-game Southland Conference series.
