HOUSTON – HCU baseball made use of a pair of grand slams en route to a 9-5 win over visiting Lamar in a must-win Southland Conference game on Sunday afternoon at Husky Field in a continuation of a game begun Saturday evening that secured the Huskies' spot in the 2026 SLC Tournament.
HCU (22-27, 13-17 SLC) starter
David Lopez tossed a scoreless first inning on Saturday evening before lightning and weather issues in the area forced the suspension of the game until Sunday afternoon. Lopez came back on Sunday and, in three total innings in the game, gave up just a pair of runs on a Cade Pregeant home run in the top of the third that gave the Cardinals (28-24, 19-11 SLC) a 2-0 lead.
The Huskies had a big answer in the bottom of the third.
Rhett Hendricks singled to start the inning with
Katcher Halligan and
Jeremy Rader both drawing two-out walks to load the bases. Following a pitching change,
Jack Walker sent a 2-2 offering over the right field wall for a grand slam and a 4-2 lead.
Reliever
Louis Castano kept the Cardinals off the board for the next three innings to send HCU into the bottom of the sixth with a two-run lead. A walk and three hit batters pushed across another run and gave the Huskies a 5-2 lead with two outs in the inning. Three pitches later,
Luke Bard blasted the team's second grand slam over the wall in left center for a 9-2 HCU advantage.
Pregeant struck again in the seventh, sending his second long ball of the day out to left for a three-run shot that pulled Lamar within four, 9-5. The rest of the game moved quickly with Castano and
Ben Norton keeping the Cardinals off the board the rest of the way.
Castano earned the win in relief, moving to 4-2 on the year, with five innings of work. The senior right-hander allowed three earned runs on four hits while striking out a career-high nine with no walks.
At the plate, the Huskies finished with just four hits but they took advantage of five walks and five hit batters. Walker's home run was his sixth of the season while Bard's round-tripper was his second of the year.
The Huskies headed into the game needing to win in order to tie with New Orleans for eighth place in the league standings. With the SLC Tournament including eight teams, the Huskies owned the tiebreaker over the Privateers after winning two-of-three over UNO in the three-game series played in April at Husky Field.
HCU will now face regular season champion and No. 1 seed Southeastern in the Hammond, La. bracket on Thursday, May 14, at 6:00 p.m. Before that, though, the Huskies will wrap up the regular season on Tuesday, May 12, at 6:00 p.m. in Huntsville, Texas for a game against the Sam Houston Bearkats.
