Lamar sports information
CORPUS CHRISTI — Will Hibbs was phenomenal and worked the first shutout of the season for the Lamar baseball team with a complete game that gave the Cardinals, in their return to Southland Conference action, a 1-0 win over Texas A&M-Corpus Christi Friday night at Chapman Field. The win improves the Cardinals’ win streak to 13 and league win streak to seven.
Hibbs (6-1) had only six base runners in the game, and one was an error. The senior right-hander gave up only four hits on no walks, all with 10 strikeouts. Lamar improved to 23-7 overall and 8-2 in league action while the Islanders fell to 11-18 overall and 3-7 in Southland action.
The 13 consecutive victories is the most that Lamar has had since it won 19 straight in 1980. The school record for consecutive wins is 20 set in the year before.
Hibbs started off the game with three straight strikeouts, all swinging, and then followed that inning with two more in the second. He gave up his first hit of the game in the third, but rolled him up in a 5-4-3 double play and a strikeout ended the frame.
Of the six runners, only two made it to scoring position and none were able to make it past second base. It was Hibbs’ first career complete-game shutout, and the third blanking he’s been a part of as a Cardinal.
The Friendswood native allowed back-to-back, two-out singles in the fourth that put him in a jam, but he induced an infield pop-up. He retired the side in order in the fifth and sixth, and he’d retired eight in a row before he allowed a single in the seventh.
In the seventh, he allowed a one-out single and a two-out single, but retired the side on a groundout to Chaneng Varela at second base. He retired the side in order in the eighth and only allowed a base runner via error in the ninth.
A leadoff walk doomed the Islander pitching when Chris Falwell (1-3) issued four straight balls to Varela in the third inning. Brendan Satran singled to left field and put two runners on for Stijn van der Meer, who singled to center to load the bases.
Varela scored when Jake Nash rolled over a groundball to the right side. Falwell finished with eight innings of work and allowed the lone run on six hits and four walks. He struck out 11, and his reliever Garrett Harris added another. Between all three pitchers, 22 batters struck out.
Van der Meer led off the game with a double down the right field line, which extended the senior’s hit streak to 20 games on the year. He also matched the longest reached base streak (28) with the shortstop he replaced, Sam Bumpers from 2014.
Van der Meer had three of the Cardinals’ six hits. Cutter McDowell, Varela and Satran accounted for the other three.
Hibbs’ 10 strikeouts is the third time that a Cardinal pitcher has notched double-digits in the category, and was only the second complete game from a starter this year (Billy Love).
Lamar will try and play for its fourth straight weekend series win today when the two teams square off at 4. Love (2-1, 3.03 earned run average) is slated to take the bump for LU while righty Devin Skapura (2-3, 2.88) is expected to go for Corpus Christi.