LAKE CHARLES — Lamar still has the upper hand in the Battle of the Border basketball rivalry with McNeese State, and along with that, a spot in the driver’s seat toward another Southland Conference tournament berth.

Christian Barrett had 17 points and 10 rebounds, leading the Cardinals to an 84-75 win over McNeese before 2,492 on Saturday at the three-month-old Health and Human Performance Complex. Lamar has won three of four and two straight games for the first since winning three in a row in late December.

“I know we have lot of good shooters on the team,” Barrett said after his second double-double in a row. “I just kind of have to prepare myself and position myself in between my man and the basket to where I can rebound and get up and get a bucket easy.”

Now, Lamar has leapfrogged its archrival for eighth place in the Southland with nine games remaining. The top eight teams at the end of the regular season move on to the Southland Conference tournament.

“We were going to go up and make them come down,” Cardinals coach Tic Price, a former McNeese State head man, said. “Also, you’re playing your rivals. You have to step up to your challenge. I think the last 10 contests between them [and us] is 5-5. I told our guys, never let McNeese be one-up on you. I think they understood how pivotal this game was, and they did a good job of making sure they manned up did a good job in pulling out the victory.”

Barrett led four Cardinals (11-11, 4-5 in Southland) in double figures. Jordan Hunter and V.J. Holmes each had 16 points (Hunter made eight assists), and Josh Nzeakor scored 10 of his 12 points in the second half. V.J. Holmes nearly made it five Cards with nine points, four assists and four rebounds.

The Cardinals shot 17 for 30 (56.7 percent) in the second half to come back from a 35-31 halftime deficit. The Cards finished 30 of 62 (48.4) for the game, including 7 of 24 from three-point range (29.2), and made 17 of 20 free throws (85).

“We stopped running our half-court sets to run strictly motion to get them moving around a lot more,” Price said. “In our half-court sets, it was a lot of moving around, and it was easier for them to guard us.”

Paced by Roydell Brown’s 26 points, the Cowboys (7-14, 3-5) shot well throughout the game, making 27 of 49 for 55.1 percent, but a cold 4 for 14 from the arc and 17-for-28 free-throw shooting came back to haunt them.

So did Lamar’s control of the offensive glass. The Cards had 15 of their 35 rebounds on offense, compared to McNeese’s 8 of 25.

“In our scouts [scouting report], we noticed the other team was outrebounding us,” Price said. “When we felt like if we attacked the glass in the 1-3-1 zone, there are a lot of opportunities to get second shots. We felt like if we could not attack the offensive glass, we were letting them off the hook.”

Lamar went on a 10-2 run to start the second half, which included two Garth free throws following a technical foul against coach Heath Schroyer, McNeese’s second of the game. (Jarren Greenwood was assessed one in the first half.)

McNeese pulled within 62-60 mostly behind the performance of Brown, who had 16 of his points in the second half. But Nzeakor had gotten going, and Barrett gave him scoring help on the low post.

The Cards led by as much as 80-67 with 1:36 to play.

Next for Lamar is a home contest with second-place Abilene Christian at 7 p.m. Wednesday.

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I.C. Murrell: 721-2435. Twitter: @ICMurrellPANews