Lamar sports information

BEAUMONT — Lamar (5-6) attempted to fight through 10 walks Saturday in the series finale against Brigham Young (7-3), but the attempt ultimately fell short in the 4-0 result in favor of BYU.

“Coming into this series we knew BYU had one of the best pitching staffs in the country and we saw that all weekend,” said head coach Will Davis. “[Justin] Sterner was their best guy on paper and he proved to be that. He came in with a .129 opponents’ batting average, so we knew we’d have our hands full. We watched video of him and thought we had as good of a plan as we could, but at the end of the day when guys have really good stuff like that it’s hard to fight them tooth and nail and string anything together. We weren’t able to do that today. On the mound we pitched out of some jams and played well on defense, and we’re really close to being the team we want to be, but we need some more guys to step up for us.”

Noah Sills threw five innings with five hits allowed, three earned runs, four strikeouts, and three walks. The senior from Honolulu went 1-2-3 in the first inning with two strikeouts before his first walk of the day, a single, and a sac fly scored the first run for BYU in the second inning. The Cougars stranded two on base in the third with Sills’ third strikeout but continued to put runners on base in the fourth. Back-to-back singles to open the inning reached second and third on a sac bunt and both runs came home on a one-out double. A strikeout and a popout ended the fourth with BYU leading 3-0.

Neither team scored in the fifth, sixth, or seventh innings as BYU twice loaded the bases and left all six Cougars on thanks to terrific work from Jack Dallas, but BYU wasn’t quite done scoring. Consecutive walks to open the eighth reached second and third on a sac bunt to the pitcher and a grounder to third pushed a Cougar across the plate for the final score of the game, 4-0.

Lamar collected leadoff hits from Robin Adames in the second, JC Correa in the fourth and Avery George in the sixth and had lead-off walks from Rhett McCall in the third and Logan LeJeune in the fifth but struggled to string together hits and walks. George’s two hits keep alive his 10-game hit streak and 21-game reached base streak.

The Cardinals return to action on Tuesday with non-conference action at Houston Baptist (4-6) at 2 p.m. before coming home to open Southland Conference play with a three-game home stand against Stephen F. Austin on March 8-10.

 

FRIDAY: Lamar 3, BYU 1

 

BEAUMONT — Going seven innings with just four hits, one unearned run, two walks, and a career-best eight strikeouts, Jason Blanchard made it easier on the offense to carry Lamar (5-5) to a 3-1 win over Brigham Young (6-3) on Friday. The Cards homered twice in the first for a 3-0 lead and just one combined run was scored the rest of the game.

“Jason really stepped up for us and was great,” said head coach Will Davis. “I think he can be that Friday night starter for us that matches toe-to-toe with another good pitcher and he did that for us tonight. He was averaging over a strikeout an inning which is good. When contact happens bad luck happens and there’s not a lot of bad luck when you strike someone out. He’s gone to that next level and his poise and leadership make him a bona fide Friday night guy for us.”

Blanchard stepped up when LU needed him most. With runners on first and second with one out the senior from Kingwood, Texas, earned his first strikeout of the day and forced a pop fly to center to strand the runners. He got another strikeout for the second out of the second inning but allowed a double which reached third on a passed ball in the next at-bat. A single brought the run home but Blanchard calmly returned to the mound and forced a groundout to himself to limit the damage. He struck out his third batter in the third with a runner on first and then sat down six more Cougars in a row with three force outs in the fourth and three strikeouts in the fifth. He allowed just two hits outside of the second inning.

Lamar’s offense struck early when Avery George led off with a single to left center field, his ninth game in a row with a hit and his 20th consecutive game to reach a base going back to last year. Cole Coker swung at the first pitch he saw and crushed it 360 feet over both outfield walls to bring George and himself home, and that proved to be the winning run. Robin Adames also got a homer in the first after battling through six pitches. On the seventh pitch he tattooed a ball 435 feet over the Kinsel Toyota ad and gave LU a 3-0 lead.

Douglas Palmer took the mound in the eighth and got one strikeout while allowing one hit and one walk, and AJ Ozorio-Brace closed the game with a 1-2-3 ninth on back-to-back liners to left and a pop fly to center.

George, Coker (2-for-3), JC Correa, Adames, Jorge Gutierrez, and Reese Durand each had a hit this evening. LU continues to average one home run a game for 10 on the year after hitting just 12 homers all of last season.