BEAUMONT — Lamar softball coach Holly Bruder was not overly excited how her team played, but she was thrilled with the end result.

The Cardinals swept the Southeastern Louisiana Lions in a doubleheader Saturday to move to 23-14 overall and 10-4 in the Southland Conference standings. The record is good enough to move the Cardinals into second place behind conference-leading McNeese State.

“To sweep a team is almost impossible in softball,” Bruder said. “This sends a message to the rest of the conference to look out. Everyone is looking at their phones and saying ‘Hey, Lamar just swept a team.’ They know they are going to have to play their best.”

Lamar did not fully play its best Saturday in Game 2 of the doubleheader, a 6-3 victory.

The Cardinals had three errors in Game 2 after having five in the first game, a 10-6 Lamar win.

Lamar busted open the game in the bottom of the third with SELA (19-20, 5-10) up 2-1 after the visitor’s half of the inning.

Brittany Rodriguez tied the game with a RBI single. Two batters later, catcher Brynn Baca put the Cardinals up 3-2 with a single that scored Baylie Comeaux.

Kelly Meeuwsen came home on a wild pitch to make it 4-2 before Ashley McDowell drove in two more runs with a single to left as Lamar took a 6-2 lead.

Lamar relief pitcher Lauren Dannelley did her part in the last three innings to keep the Lions away from being a serious threat to win the game.

Dannelley gave up one unearned run on two hits with one strikeout and one walk. Ciara Luna got the win on the mound after pitching the first four innings. She gave up two earned runs on three hits with two strikeouts and one walk.

The Cardinals did show in both games the ability to score runs in a variety of ways.

Lamar centerfielder Jenna Holland in the first game bunted and scored all in the same at-bat. She reached on a single, advanced on an error and eventually came home on another SELA error.

“We set the tone on Friday,” Bruder said. “Am I happy with eight errors on the day? Absolutely not. We were able to overcome it with timely strikeouts on their part and timely double plays on our part and timely hitting on our part.

“It was a crazy, wild series. We had an executed squeeze and the kid got all the way home. It goes to show you we have a lot of things in our repertoire. We used everything we could to get the job done.”

The Cardinals took Game 1 of the doubleheader 10-6 behind a six-running sixth inning.

Lamar scored six runs in the inning to erase a 6-4 hole on two hits. The Lions had three errors in the sixth.

Meeuwsen and Brittany Rodriguez were both 2 for 4 in the game with two runs.  Jenna Holland finished 1 for 3 with a run and a RBI while Ashley McDowell was 1 for 2 with two RBI.

Lamar out hit SELA 8-7 and had five errors compared to the Lions’ four.

Amie Cisneros (2-1) was credited with the win on the mound. She pitched the final two innings and gave up no runs on one hit with one walk.

Laura Napoli hurled the first five innings and gave up six runs (four earned) on six hits with three strikeouts and four walks.

The Cardinals hit the road to face Texas State at 6 p.m. Wednesday in San Marcos before a weekend series at home against Texas A&M-Corpus Christi starting at 6 p.m. Friday.