LCU to host West Texas A&M in LSC first-round series
Game times have been set for No. 4 seed Lubbock Christian University's best-of-three series against No. 5 seed West Texas A&M in this week's first round of the Lone Star Conference baseball tournament.
LCU (31-19, 29-19) will host West Texas A&M (30-20, 28-20) at 6 p.m. Friday, 3 p.m. Saturday and, if necessary, 1 p.m. Sunday, all at Hays Field.
The Lone Star Conference tournament is a two-week event. The first week consists of the top four seeds hosting best-of-three series Friday, Saturday and Sunday at campus sites. The four series winners advance to a double-elimination bracket May 11-13 at the home of the highest remaining seed.
The other first-round series have No. 1 seed Angelo State (42-8, 40-8) hosting No. 8 seed Eastern New Mexico (23-26, 21-26), No. 2 seed St. Edward's (36-13, 34-13) at home against No. 7 seed St. Mary's (25-25, 23-25) and No. 3 seed UT Tyler (35-15, 34-14) hosting Texas A&M-Kingsville (26-24, 25-23).
LCU swept the four-game, regular-season conference series from West Texas A&M to move into the top four. Those games were April 21-23 in the Chaparrals' last regular-season home series.
Chaps left fielder Eduardo Acosta went 9 for 17 in the series with a home run and nine runs batted in, and leadoff-batting shortstop Carson Ogilvie went 8 for 16 over the four games with four RBI and six runs scored.
Angelo State has won the LSC tournament the past two years as well as in 2015 and 2012. The Rams are ranked No. 2 in NCAA Division II in the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association poll. St. Edward's is No. 15.
LCU softball
No. 4 seed Lubbock Christian University will play Cameron in a Lone Star Conference tournament semifinal at 1:30 p.m. Friday in Tyler.
No. 1 seed UT Tyler, the conference regular-season champion for the third year in a row, is the host of the 10-team, single-elimination tournament.
LCU won two of three from Cameron in the conference regular-season series April 11-12 in Lubbock. The winner between LCU (39-14, 29-13) and Cameron (30-22, 25-17) will play UT Tyler (51-4, 39-2) at 6:30 p.m. Friday in the semifinals.
The high seeds in the bottom half of the bracket are No. 2 seed West Texas A&M (46-5, 37-5) and No. 3 seed Oklahoma Christian (34-14, 29-13).
In the weekly ranking by the National Fastpitch Coaches Association, UT Tyler is No. 3, West Texas A&M No. 10, Oklahoma Christian No. 22 and LCU No. 24.
LCU softball
Lubbock Christian University's Maxine Valdez was named the Lone Star Conference pitcher of the week for the fourth time this season.
Valdez threw her fourth no-hitter of the season and sixth of her career in a 4-0 victory Friday at the University of Texas of the Permian Basin. The senior righthander from Buda Hays struck out 16, tying a program single-game record set by Sarah Mendez in 2012 against Waldorf.
Valdez initially was credited incorrectly with 17 strikeouts. An LCU athletics spokesman said the scoring on a seventh-inning play was corrected later to credit a catcher-unassisted putout.
Valdez is 16-4 with a 2.37 earned-run average and seven shutouts this season.
This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: LCU to host West Texas A&M in LSC baseball tournament first-round series
