BEAUMONT, Texas – Lamar University will play a 30-match schedule including nine home matches before the start of the Southland Conference Championship tournament announced head coach Brandon Crisp Wednesday afternoon. The schedule, which includes four non-conference tournaments, will have the Cardinals on the road for the first month of the season.
 
"We're excited about the upcoming schedule," said Crisp. "We know this is going to be a challenging schedule with more traveling than in previous seasons, but we're excited to get to work. We have a huge crop of talented newcomers joining the program and we're excited to watch their development."
 
In the opening month the Cardinals will play in tournaments at Miami, Fla. (Aug. 25-26 – opponents for the Miami tournament have not been released), San Antonio, Texas (Sept. 1-2), Ruston, La. (Sept. 8-9) and Las Vegas, Nev. (Sept. 14-16).
 
The Roadrunner Classic will pit Big Red against former conference foes UTSA (Sept. 1) and Tarleton State (Sept. 1) as well as the University of Delaware (Sept. 2). The following week LU will travel to Ruston to play Grambling State (Sept. 8), Little Rock (Sept. 8) and Louisiana Tech (Sept. 9). The final non-conference tournament of the season will be at UNLV where the Cards will face Portland (Sept. 14), Coppin State (Sept. 15) and tournament-host UNLV (Sept. 16).
 
Big Red opens Southland Conference play Thursday, Sept. 21 at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi. Two days later the Cardinals will return to Beaumont for their home-opener against Texas A&M-Commerce, who is entering its second season in the Southland.
 
The annual rivalry with McNeese will take place Thursday, Oct. 5, in Lake Charles, with the rematch coming Thursday, Nov. 2, in Beaumont.