BEAUMONT, Texas – With the wind blowing in at Vincent-Beck Stadium, it turned into a pitching and defense afternoon, but the Lamar University baseball team scratched some early runs together and downed Texas Southern 3-2 in its final home midweek contest on Tuesday afternoon in non-conference action.
Three Cardinal (25-17) relievers trotted out and held the Tigers (15-25) hitless in the final five innings, and were an error in the ninth away from retiring the last 16 batters of the contest.
Brent Janak pitched three of those five innings and was perfect with four strikeouts, including the seventh inning in which he struck out the side in order.
Galen Andrews – who returned from an injury he suffered in March – tossed an inning and
Tanner Driskill (4) earned a save with his work in the ninth inning.
Ryan Johnson (2-1) started the game for the Cardinals and pitched four solid innings with just one inning of trouble. He allowed two runs with four hits and a walk.
"After the last four games we've had pitching-wise, it was great to come back home and pitch pretty well," said head coach
Will Davis. "Ryan was as good as he's been since he got back. This was a great opportunity for him to get back out there and pitch for us. It was great to have someone go four innings.
"He and Brent combined to give us seven innings. That's twice in a row for Brent to come out and pitch like that. He's really turned it on toward the end of his senior year, which is great to see," said Davis. "It was really nice to get Galen back too. It was a little nerve-wracking to send him out there for the first time in a while during such a tight game, but we needed to do it and he did great. We're going to need him down the stretch."
Despite the error on a slow roller to the pitcher in the ninth, the Cardinal defense contributed to the pitcher's great outings. Twice in the first four innings the Cardinals turned a double play. In the first,
Chad Fleischman started a 5-4-3 double play that ended an inning with a runner on, and he did it again in the fourth to end the Tigers' rally inning.
In the third, catcher
Bryndan Arredondo chopped down a runner stealing second, which ended an inning.
Grant DeVore made a diving play at second base in the sixth that kept leadoff hitter Karmen Dukes off the bags. In the eighth
Trey Silvers made a diving stab at a ball, corralled it and tossed to a covering Janak to keep Richard Alamo off to start a frame.
Reid Russell and
Cutter McDowell each made spectacular catches that kept Tigers from getting extra bases. McDowell's was the first batter of the game. Dukes ripped a pitch to deep right field that McDowell caught over the shoulder as he was approaching the warning track. Russell did the same in left field when Ricky Urbano lined one to left field.
"We've really played good defense in our last few games, and hopefully that is a trend," said Davis. "Reid and Cutter each made spectacular grabs that saved doubles. We've really handled the baseball well today."
The Cardinals jumped out to quick lead in the first inning. McDowell drew a leadoff walk and Russell doubled behind him to put men on second and third with no outs.
Robin Adames scored McDowell and moved Russell to third with a sacrifice fly to center field, and Silvers grounded out to the right side to score Russell.
Texas Southern tied the game at 2-2 in the top of the fourth on three-straight hits, two were for extra bases. Dukes popped a leadoff triple to left center, Gaudencio Lucca followed with a double down the left field line and Sterling Motley was last with a single into shallow right field.
The Cardinals took the lead back in the bottom of the inning.
Brendan Satran reached with a one-out double down the left field line and scored on a single to left center from McDowell.
Lamar put up seven hits and drew seven walks in the game. Arredondo led the way with a 2-for-4 game, and McDowell, Russell, Fleischman, Satran and DeVore all put up one base knock apiece. All three RBIs were collected in the top four batters – McDowell, Adames and Silvers – and two of the three runs were in the same group – McDowell and Russell. Russell drew to walk and was 1-for-2 on the day.
Robert Loza started the game and fired two innings with two runs allowed on two hits and two walks. Ryan Hawkins (0-6) took the loss after he gave up the winning run in four innings of work and walked four batter and allowed four hits. The Tigers used five pitchers.
The Cardinals – who wrapped up the midweek home slate a perfect 6-0 – returns to the field on Friday at 6 p.m. to open a three-game Southland Conference series with Nicholls. The second contest is slated for 2 p.m. Saturday and the finale on Sunday at 1 p.m.
