Lamar sports information

HAMMOND, La. – The tough weekend series road swing continues for the Lamar baseball team, this one at one of the hottest teams in the Southland Conference in Southeastern Louisiana at Pat Kenelly Diamond in a three-game series that starts at 6 p.m. today.

The second game of the series is slated for 2 p.m. on Saturday and the finale at 1 p.m. Sunday. All three games can be heard online at lionsports.net or through the TuneIn Radio app (search for KSLU). Steaming video of all three games will be available at SLU’s subscription-based video stream.

Both teams enter with midweek wins, Lamar (10-8, 0-3 Southland) with two wins over Prairie View A&M and Texas Southern and Southeastern (12-4, 3-0) against South Alabama. The Lions have won their last eight games, including a league sweep over New Orleans in their last weekend outing.

Two right handers will take the hill on Friday night. LU’s Tanner Driskill (1-2, 4.44 earned run average) will try to rebound from his tough start at Sam Houston State. He’s started four games and has a team-leading 24 1/3 innings pitched. He’s struck out 16 batters and walked two.

He’ll face off with preseason All-Southland Conference pitcher, Mac Sceroler, the second-straight all-league pitcher Driskill will to go head-to-head with (Heath Donica). Sceroler is 3-0 on the season with a 2.08 ERA in 26 innings of work. The junior has 37 strikeouts and five walks in four starts.

Carson Lance will be back on the bump on Saturday again. He pitched in Sunday’s game against the Bearkats, and was fantastic despite taking the loss. The junior is 3-1 with 2.66 ERA in 20 1/3 innings and four starts. He worked 5 2/3 frames with two runs allowed on two hits and six walks. He carried a no-hitter into the fifth inning.

Corey Gaconi (1-0, 3.38 ERA) will oppose him in his fourth start of the season. He’s pitched 18 2/3 innings with seven runs allowed on 15 hits and three walks; he also has 15 strikeouts.

Jace Campbell (1-1, 3.86 ERA) goes back to his normal Sunday start, where he’s been for every series on the year except at Sam Houston State. The junior has pitched in 18 2/3 frames and struck out 18 batters.

As a unit, the Lion pitching staff has a 3.49 earned run average and 142 innings with 124 team strikeouts and 44 walks. Lamar’s staff heads in 3.82 ERA and 158 innings of work with 141 punch outs and 67 walks.

Southeastern brings the reigning Louisville Slugger National Player of the Week in Taylor Schwarner into the series. He tops the Lions — who hit at a .253 clip — with a .362 batting average. He’s the team’s leader in triples (2), home runs (5) and runs batted in (26). SLU also has Drew Avans (.333) and Derrick Mount (.302) hitting above the .300 line.

Sophomore Robin Adames — who is on a 26-game reached base streak — leads the Cardinals in batting average at .368, followed closely by Reid Russell, who paces the offense in home runs (4), RBI (18), slugging (.591) and on-base percentage (.476).  The duo moved up in the batting order from fourth and fifth to third and fourth.

Russell popped his fourth home run of the year on a three-run shot against Texas Southern.

Cole Coker move his batting average back up above .300 at .302 on the year. Cutter McDowell has been hot in his last four games, going 5-of-13 (.385) with four doubles, three runs and six runs batted in.

Lamar returns home to face a familiar foe in non-conference action when the Demons of Northwestern State take the field at Vincent-Beck Stadium Wednesday at 6 p.m. That is the first of a four-game stand at home for LU, where it is 9-2. Incarnate Word will visit the following weekend for more Southland Conference action.