Lamar sports information

BEAUMONT – Featuring 28 home games, including 13 in the first month of the season, and 15 games against teams that made the NCAA postseason, the 2019 Lamar baseball schedule was released on Tuesday.

The Cardinals will begin the year on Feb. 15 and open Southland Conference play on March 8.
“I think we play an extremely challenging schedule. 12 of our 26 non-conference games are against NCAA tournament teams,” said head coach Will Davis. “We pride ourselves on being a team that will play anyone anywhere and I think we prove that with this schedule.”

Non-conference opponents
Returning to Vincent-Beck Stadium for the first time since 2014, LIU Brooklyn will be Lamar’s first opponent of 2019. The Redbirds and Blackbirds will vie off in a three-game series Feb. 15-17. Lamar will briefly dip out of the state of Texas for a two-game road series at Tulane, then return for the Cardinal Classic, a tournament tradition that has taken place in five of the past six years.

Other non-conference highlights before Southland play begins include a one-off at home against Houston (Feb. 26), a three-game home series against BYU (Feb. 28 – March 2), and a road game at Houston Baptist (March 5), which is normally a Southland opponent, but this season is not featured in Southland play.

After Southland play begins Lamar will take brief breaks from conference action with single games at Rice (March 12), at home against Southern (March 19), at Texas A&M (March 26), at home against HBU (Apr. 2), at UTSA (Apr. 9), at Texas (Apr. 16), at LSU (Apr. 23), at Baylor (Apr. 30), at home against Rice (May 7), and at TCU (May 14). A three-game series at Gonzaga will also take place May 10-12.

Southland Conference opponents
Southland Conference play will start March 8 in a three-game home stand against Stephen F. Austin (March 8-10). The Cards will play their next two Southland series on the road at McNeese State (March 15-17) and at Northwestern State (March 22-24) before returning home for Nicholls State (March 29-31) to close the month.

April will feature a weekend trip to Sam Houston (April 5-7), a three-game home series against A&M-Corpus Christi (April 12-14), and road campaigns to Abilene Christian (April 18-20) and New Orleans (April 26-28). ACU and New Orleans will be part of a nine-game departure from the friendly confines of Vincent-Beck Stadium from April 16 (Texas) to Apr. 30 (Baylor).

Home series against Southeastern Louisiana (May 3-5) and Central Arkansas (May 16-18) will round out the 2019 regular season, and the Southland Conference tournament will take place at Constellation Field in Sugar Land from May 22 until May 25. The NCAA tournament will start the following week, May 31-June 3, followed by the NCAA Super Regionals June 7-10 and the College World Series June 15-26.

Recapping the 2018 season
The 2018 season featured a few bumps and bruises along the way, but ended positively for Lamar. The Cardinals swept Battle of the Border rivals McNeese State for the first time in a decade in the closing weekend of the regular season, and had Tanner Driskill drafted in the ninth round by the Washington Nationals. The 2017 and 2018 preseasons saw nationally ranked recruiting classes that were pegged as the best in the Southland, and the incoming 2019 class is expected to be just as good.

Season ticket sales
The 2019 season tickets will be available at a later date on LamarCardinals.com. Stay tuned to LamarCardinals.com and @LamarAthletics on social media for all future updates.

Fall schedule
The preseason preparations for the 2019 season are just a few days away for Lamar with the fall, full-squad practice sessions slated to begin on Oct. 1 and continue until Nov. 14. Included in that slate are the Fall World Series games Nov. 12-14 and, thanks to a new NCAA rule that allows two exhibition games in the fall, preseason games at Texas State on Oct. 20 and at UTSA on Oct. 27.