BEAUMONT — For the youthful Lamar Cardinals, the 2018 season has been their time to grow in college baseball.

But the month of May has been a time for true freshmen Logan LeJeune and Chase Kemp to blossom.

“Logan’s been a gritty battler for us all year,” second-year head coach Will Davis said. “He had some great at-bats [Thursday]. Chase had some bad luck earlier in the year, and you can tell it kind of got to him a little. It hurt his confidence.”

Whatever confidence Kemp, who like his fellow Mid-Countian LeJeune is a true freshman, lost during the season was regained.

The Nederland product went 2 for 4 and drove in two runs, Port Neches’ LeJeune went 3 for 3 with an RBI and two runs scored, and Lamar routed archrival McNeese State 12-5 Thursday night at Vincent-Beck Stadium. The Cardinals began their season-ending series totaling 20 hits against the Cowboys.

“I took the time I wasn’t in the lineup to really analyze what I was doing,” Kemp said. “I went back through my mistakes and tried to fix them. I think it’s working out pretty well.”

Davis said Kemp had hit the ball well in practice late and re-inserted him into the lineup last Saturday in a 7-3 win at Stephen F. Austin. Kemp, who is batting .191 on the year, had been out of the lineup since April 21 but went 4 for 7 against the Lumberjacks in that series.

“We know Chase is going to be a special hitter for us, so it’s good to see him finish strong here,” Davis said.

LeJeune, a .267 hitter, has 31 hits and 16 RBI on the season. He clipped .400 or better in series against New Orleans, Texas A&M-Corpus Christi and Abilene Christian.

“I just really simplified my swing,” LeJeune said. “I knew what I had to do. I wanted to be a clutch guy, so I just wanted to be in those clutch situations and do the job.”

Lamar (17-36, 11-17 Southland) is 11th in the Southland and cannot overtake Incarnate Word or New Orleans for the eighth and final seed in next week’s conference tournament. So, the Cardinals hope to end the season with a sweep of the archrival Cowboys (25-29, 15-13), who won three of four from the Cardinals last season in winning the Southland regular-season title.

Junior Noah Sills (3-5, 3.18 ERA) will start for Lamar against Cayne Ueckert (4-2, 4.31) at 6 p.m. Friday. Junior Jason Blanchard (0-6, 3.69) gets the nod for the 2 p.m. Saturday game, with McNeese’s starter to be announced.

Senior Tanner Driskill (6-5, 4.00) fired five strikeouts and allowed four earned runs on six hits in 6 2/3 innings before leaving with emotions flowing to a standing ovation in his final start. Freshman Jack Dallas of Orange threw one strikeout and four outs of hitless ball and Garrett Walker finished with one hit and a strikeout.

Avery George, Robin Adames and Grant DeVore each had three hits for the Cardinals. Adames smashed a two-run home run in the sixth inning and doubled twice, while George had one two-bag hit.

Phil Ingram and Cole Coker each had two hits. Port Neches’ Cole Girouard and Chad Fleischman accounted for the other Lamar liners.

Seven different McNeese players each had a hit.

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