BEAUMONT, TEXAS – A couple of early runs for the University of the Incarnate Word baseball team proved to be enough for the Cardinals' first Southland Conference road victory of the year, beating Lamar 2-0 on Saturday at Vincent-Beck Stadium.

A strange play in the top of the first inning erased what would have been a 2-run home run for Matt Morris (Scottsdale, AZ/Saguaro HS). Morris hit a ball to deep left field that was nearly caught at the wall, but went over the fence.  While Morris was running he passed Mark Whitehead (San Antonio/Johnson HS) on the base paths because Whitehead was holding in case the ball was caught, which caused Morris to be called out and only credited with a single. Whitehead was allowed to score on the play for the Cardinals' (14-27, 5-15 SLC) first run of the game.

Christian Divelbiss (Yuba City, CA/ Yuba City HS) led off the second inning with a walk, advance to second on a Colton Besett (Cedar Park/Vista Ridge HS) single and later scored on a single through the right side from Trey Rodriguez (Corpus Christi/Carroll HS). 

With a 2-0 lead in the second inning, Garret Cooper (Round Rock/McNeil HS) and John Shull (San Antonio/Churchill HS) took care of the rest, shutting out the Lamar (19-23, 8-12 SLC) offense. Cooper pitched six scoreless innings scattering seven hits, four walks and two strikeouts for his fifth win of the season. Shull came in to pitch in relief in the seventh inning for a nine-out save. He hurled three scoreless innings to collect his first save of the season, allowing four hits and striking out one.

The Cardinals collected nine hits as a team and committed no errors. Besett and Morris led the offense with two hits apiece.

The Lamar Cardinals collected more hits, 11, than UIW, but were unable to score despite Stijn van der Meer's 4-for-4 day at the plate. Jayson McKinley got credited with the loss for Lamar, dropping to 2-3 on the year.  Relief pitcher Danny Fernandez tossed 6.1 shutout innings of relief allowing just three hits and one walk while striking out six.

Lamar was able to load the bases in the fourth and sixth innings, but could not score.  In the ninth inning, they put a runner on base, but a 5-4-3 double play ended the game.  Overall, they left 10 runners on base.

The series is now tied 1-1 and the rubber match is set for Sunday at 1:00 p.m.
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