MONROE, La.?Troy
jumped out to an early five run lead and held off a furious ULM rally to defeat the Warhawks 11-7 Friday
night in the Sun Belt Conference series opener at Warhawk Field.
Bryan
Miller hit the first of his two home runs ? a grand slam ? in the top of the
third giving the Trojans (29-21, 15-10 Sun Belt) a 5-0 lead after Bart Pettus
opened the scoring with a single through the right side of the infield.
The
Warhawks (31-18, 19-9) scored three runs in the bottom of the ninth inning and had the tying
run at the plate, but Josh Storm struck out Dexter Fontenot to end the game and
set the Troy single-season record with his 10th
save of the season.
ULM scored a pair of runs in both the
third and fifth innings, but the Trojans answered with a run in their next
at-bat both times.
Ben
Soignier set the ULM
single-season runs scored record scoring twice on the game pushing his total
out to 75 on the year. The junior
shortstop finished the game 2-for-4 with his 14th home run of the
season.
After the
Warhawks closed the gap to 6-4 with Soignier's homer in the fifth, Miller hit
his second home run of the night in the eighth sparking a four-run inning
giving the Trojans an 11-4 lead. Miller
finished the game 3-for-5 with a game-high five RBIs.
Kyle Suire
drove in three runs moving to fourth on the single-season list with 58 on the
season after going 3-for-5 from the plate with a double and a triple. Ryan McMillan finished the game with a pair
of hits, while Nick Wade and Jon Prevost each drove in a run.
Tim Wheeler
(4-6) tossed eight innings allowing four runs on seven hits for the win, while
Drew Graham (2-3) took the loss allowing seven runs on eight hits in six
innings.
The teams
continue the three-game series tomorrow afternoon at 4:00 p.m.
