BEAUMONT — Any concerns Lamar coach Jim Gilligan had about the offense might have gone away in the sixth inning of Friday’s home baseball game against Central Arkansas. That’s when they scored eight runs.
Gilligan characterized Lamar as a slugging team earlier in the week, adding that the
Cardinals needed to find more ways to score. They totaled 18 hits, two of them home runs by Reid Russell and Robin Adames, and began a three-game set Friday with a 19-5 victory in Vincent-Beck Stadium.
The 19 runs are the most by the Cardinals since 2013.
Game 2 is scheduled for 2 p.m. today with right-hander Jayson McKinley (0-0, 2.42 ERA) taking the mound for Lamar. Central Arkansas has not named its starter.
Russell launched his sixth home run of the season over the right-field wall to put Lamar on the board in the fourth inning. He now has one more homer than last year’s team leader, Kevin Santana.
Russell and Adames each had two hits, scored two runs and drove in four. Adames jacked a three-run shot to wrap up the Lamar scoring in the eighth.
But for the first three innings, the Cards (11-7, 2-2 Southland) left four on base, three in scoring position. Nine were stranded Tuesday in a 4-3 loss to Houston.
Jake Nash and Chaneng Varela each went 3 for 4.
Brendan Satran went 2 for 5 in his first game after missing the past five with a shoulder injury for Lamar. Stijn van der Meer and Cutter McDowell each had two hits.
Nash opened the sixth-inning outburst with a one-run double. A sacrifice fly, two errors, hit batsman, RBI single and two-run Satran double accounted for the rest of the runs in that frame.
Before all that, the Cards did take a 3-2 lead in the fifth on back-to-back RBI singles by Adames and Russell.
In the seventh, Bryndan Arredondo delivered a two-run double and scored on a
Russell sac fly. That run helped Lamar surpass its previous season high of 13 runs against Arizona and Prairie View A&M.
Lamar added its final five runs in the eighth on a wild pitch, McDowell single and
Adames’ bomb.
Will Hibbs (3-1) held UCA to two runs, both earned, on six hits and struck out eight in seven innings. Connor Gilmore (1-3) was tagged for three runs, one earned, on seven hits in 4 2/3 innings, but struck out seven.
Central Arkansas (9-8, 3-1) totaled 10 hits. Tyler Langley, Chris Townsend, Brandon
Montalvo and Butch Rea each had two hits.
The game was delayed by 75 minutes because of lightning strikes in the area, but it only rained lightly before the first pitch.
The Cards ended a two-game slide with the win.

**CORRECTS that UCA had not announced its Saturday starter, and that UCA was 3-1 in the Southland after the defeat.**