BEAUMONT, Texas – Winner in eight for its last 10 games, the Lamar University baseball team will try to keep its hot streak going when it hosts Nicholls in a big Southland Conference series, a three-game set slated to start at 2 p.m. Friday at Vincent-Beck Stadium.
Weather altered the schedule and forced LU to move a game up to play a double header on Friday and the finale at 2 p.m. Saturday. Friday's nightcap will be approximately 40 minutes after the first game has concluded. The weekend is sponsored by FivePoint Credit Union, which will be giving out T-Shirts to the first game of the weekend.
The Cardinals (25-17, 11-10 Southland) sit 1 ½ games ahead of the Colonels (21-22, 8-10 Southland) in the Southland Conference standings. Lamar sits in seventh and Nicholls is in a tie with New Orleans for eight place. The Cardinals trail Central Arkansas – which is at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi – by ½ game and Southeastern Louisiana – at Stephen F. Austin – by one game. LU is one of four teams that have played a full 21-game slate this season, joining Abilene Christian, McNeese and SLU. All other teams have used their bye weekend with only 18 games played.
Big Red enters to the weekend after a win over Texas Southern Tuesday night. LU's bullpen and defense were huge in that contest. Behind several flashy plays in the field, three LU relievers held the Tigers hitless with only one baserunner – via error – and struck out five in five innings.
The Colonels head in after a nail-biting loss at Southern Wednesday. The Jaguars rallied from being down one in the eighth inning, on a triple and a throwing error on a play at the plate.
Lamar will stick to its weekend rotation, which features right-handers
Carson Lance (6-4, 3.56 earned run average) on Friday,
Jimmy Johnson (4-4, 3.99) on Saturday and
Jace Campbell (3-2, 4.31) on Sunday. Nicholls will counter with righty Cole Stapler (3-3, 3.88) on Friday and left-hander Mike Hanchar (4-5, 4.16) on Saturday. The Colonels have made no decision Sunday's starter.
The Cardinal pitching staff has an ERA of 4.12 on the season and has 367 innings of work. They've allowed 168 earned runs and struck out 320 batters. Nicholls' staff has a team 4.86 ERA over 374 innings fired. They've allowed 202 earned runs with 327 punchouts.
Offensively, Chet Niehaus leads a Colonel team that hits at a .262 clip and averages 4.6 runs per game. Niehaus has a batting average of .341 with 21 runs scored (second on the team) and 17 runs batted in (fourth on the team). Joey Morales – hitting .245 – has the team high 27 runs scored and Gavin Wehby has the best in RBI at 25.
Lamar has a team .286 batting average and scores at a 6.7 runs per game clip.
Cutter McDowell – who's carried a .444 batting average through his last 27 games – leads the team with a .369 mark on the season and 42 runs scored, which is fourth in the Southland Conference.
Robin Adames (.341),
Reid Russell (.338),
Trey Silvers (.304) and
Bryndan Arredondo (.304) follow him in average. All five were voted Preseason All-Southland Conference.
Silvers leads the team with 39 RBI, followed by 38 from Adames and 34 from Russell. Both Russell and Silvers have eight home runs. Silvers is the reigning Southland Conference's Hitter of the Week for his four-game week at No. 8 LSU and Abilene Christian.
Once the series has concluded, Lamar will only be at home for three more games in the final 10. They play their final midweek contest of the season at Rice on Wednesday before they step out of conference play with a three-game series at Oklahoma State.
