BEAUMONT, Texas – The Lamar University men's tennis team heads to Corpus Christi, Texas Wednesday to face Texas A&M-Corpus Christi in the regular-season finale. A rivalry that has grown in strength over the past several years due to the fact that the Southland's automatic bid for the NCAA Championships has always come down between these two schools.
 
The Cardinals (6-17/1-3 SLC) enter the match looking to put a stop to a four-match slide and solidify their spot in the Southland Conference Tennis Championships at the end of the month. It has been a tough week for the Cardinals who will be playing their third match in the past four days. The stretch started Sunday in Thibodaux, La., and then the Cardinals returned to Beaumont to face Incarnate Word the following day.
 
The Cardinals currently hold the fourth and final playoff spot in the SLC standings, and a win Tuesday would lock up the fourth seed. Should the Cardinals drop the match to A&M-Corpus Christi, it would drop LU into a three-way tie with New Orleans and Nicholls and the playoff berth would come down to tiebreak scenarios. The tiebreakers would give Nicholls the berth into the conference's postseason tournament.
 
The Islanders enter the contest looking to lockup the No. 2 overall seed for a second year in a row. A&M-Corpus Christi is 16-8 (.667) on the season, and 3-1 (.750) in conference play. Corpus Christi has turned things around after dropping three consecutive matches. The Islanders have won their last three matches – all conference tilts – outscoring their opponents 13-5 during that stretch.
 
Tuesday's meeting – which gets under way at 2 p.m. from the Henry Tennis Courts – will be the first meeting between the two since LU knocked off the Islanders in the 2018 SLC Championship match to record their third consecutive trip to the NCAA Championships.