Lamar sports information

BEAUMONT — As teams across the country began to place focus on their respective conference tournaments, Lamar is looking to go on a run to secure a spot and improve their seeding heading into next month’s Southland Conference Championships in Katy.

The Cardinals enter the regular-season home finale against Texas A&M-Corpus Christi with a 16-11 (.592) overall record and alone in sixth place in the conference standings with an 8-6 (.571) league mark.

The top eight seeds advance to the Southland Conference Championships, with the top four seeds receiving a first-round bye and the top two seeds receiving a bye to the semifinals.

The Cardinals got their final stretch run out to a great start Wednesday with a 23-point victory over Incarnate Word. The victory moved LU alone into sixth place in the league standings two games back of New Orleans and Sam Houston State. The Cardinals are currently a half game up on Abilene Christian and Central Arkansas, and 1.5 games up on McNeese State.

Big Red enters the Senior Night contest having won three of its last four games.

Texas A&M-Corpus Christi heads to the Golden Triangle currently on the outside of the playoff picture looking in. The Islanders are 8-15 (.348) overall and 10th in the league standings with a 5-8 (.385) conference record. The Islanders are trying to fight their way into the tournament, currently two games out of the eighth and final playoff spot.

The season got out to a rough start for the Islanders in 2017-18. The Islanders posted a 3-7 (.300) non-conference record, and then dropped five of their first six Southland games but they’ve since turned things around winning four of the past seven games.

The Cardinals enter Saturday’s game looking for consecutive wins over A&M-Corpus Christi for the first time since the 2010-11 and 2011-12 seasons. Big Red leads the all-time series 18-9 (.667) over Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, a mark which includes a five-point decision earlier this season in Corpus Christi.

The first meeting saw both senior Colton Weisbrod and Josh Nzeakor finish the night with a double-double. Weisbrod led the way with 26 points and 14 rebounds, while Nzeakor had 17 points and 11 rebounds.

Saturday’s game is slated to tip off at 4:30 p.m. from Montagne Center. The game can be heard live on Newstalk 560 KLVI, and seen on ESPN3. The Cardinals will honor their six-man senior class prior to tip off.