HAMMOND, La. — It was quite the shock seeing the number one seed Lamar Cardinals fall to the eighth seed UIW Cardinals in round one of the Southland Conference.
Following the loss, Big Red knew from this point forward, they had to play mistake free baseball.
Jacob Ellis took the bump for the Cards in the elimination game of the Southland Conference Tournament and picked up right where Brooks Caple left off from game one.
Going 5.1 innings pitched, Ellis struck out four, while only allowing two earned runs on six hits.
Lamar had offensive trouble in their first round game on Wednesday. However, in just the 2nd inning, Big Red made sure to flip the page.
Eight runs crossed home plate in Lamar's home half of the second inning.
Consecutive singles by both Zak Skinner and Logan Hamm followed by a walk from Jack Schell produced a bases loaded, no outs situation.
Austin Roccaforte knocked a bloop single over first base to bring in the first run in the game, with everyone going station-to-station on the base paths.
A two-run hot shot single by Ethan Ruiz extended the early lead to 3-0, shortly after saw Drake Varnado lay down a tremendous bunt that brought in Roccaforte from third base to make it 4-0 Big Red.
An RBI double from Kanin Dodge put two runners in scoring position and knocked out Dawson Flowers, NSU's starting pitcher.
Brayden Evans faced the new arm out of the bullpen, and on the very first pitch blasted one to deep right field for a three-run bomb, bringing Lamar to that 8-0 early lead.
The Demons had a few solo shots that made it interesting down the stretch, but Lamar would answer each time as the Cards win it 12-5 and will get another crack at UIW Friday at 9 AM, another elimination game.