Monroe, La. - After battling back all day, the ULM Warhawks finally broke through against Georgia Southern in the eighth inning, scoring four runs to pick up the victory 8-5, and take the weekend series two games to one, Sunday afternoon at Warhawk Field.
The series victory, ULM's first of the Sun Belt Conference slate, took a weight off the Warhawks, according to left fielder Andrew Beesley.
"It's definitely a big relief," Beesley said. "We've been playing real hard and just haven't caught a break. We finally started to catch some breaks this weekend and finally get that monkey off our back. We know we can do it. Now we just got to come out and keep proving that we can do it and play our best every week."
"I knew we had the ability to do it, it's just a matter of breaking the door down, and just saying 'ok, we're good enough to be here, good enough to be in this league,'" head coach Michael Federico said. "Georgia Southern is a very good baseball team."
Sunday's game had its challenges for ULM (11-17 overall, 2-7 Sun Belt). Georgia Southern (14-13, 5-4) took the first lead of the game on a 2-run home run by Noah Ledford in the second inning to go up 2-0.
ULM answered in the bottom of the second. Blake Buckman hit a one out double down the left field line and advanced to third on a ground ball. He scored on a wild pitch to bring the Warhawks within a run at 2-1.
The Warhawks tied the game in the fourth inning when Trent Tingelstad hit a leadoff double and scored on Beesley's sacrifice fly to knot the game at 2.
It marked the start of a stretch where the Warhawks and Eagles traded runs. Georgia Southern regained the lead in the fifth inning on an RBI single by Steven Curry, but ULM tied the game again in the bottom of the inning when Ryan Humeniuk scored on a sacrifice fly by Logan Wurm. Georgia Southern answered again in the sixth inning when Jason Swan scored on a balk, but ULM answered with a sacrifice fly by Buckman to score Tingelstad to make it 4-4.
The game remained tied to the eighth inning when ULM broke through with the big frame. Joey Jordan and Tingelstad earned walks to open the inning, and Bell lined a base hit to right field to load the bases. Beesley hit a slicing fly ball to left field which was dropped, allowing Jordan to score and gave the Warhawks the 5-4 lead. Beesley said he kept his approach simple.
"Just do something little," Beesley said. "Do my job. I knew he had to come to me. I like hitting with the bases loaded because you know they don't want to walk you. I like hitting fastballs, and I knew I was going to get some that at bat. I just had to not get too big with my swing, do something little and get the job done."
The inning rolled along after Beesley with station-to-station baseball. Buckman was hit by a pitch to allow Tingelstad to score and increase the lead to 6-4.
"We had some tremendous at bats, some hit batsmen, that they weren't selfish at bats," Federico said. "Some teams, the guy will get out of the way right there. Blake Buckman takes a hit batsmen right there and takes an RBI. That's huge. That's the kind of grinding it out we have to do."
Humeniuk followed with an RBI single on a line drive to right field, bringing home Bell and keeping the bases loaded. Masen Prososki drew a four pitch walk to drive in pinch-runner Braedon Barrett for the 8-4 advantage.
"I thought our offense did a great job of grinding some at bats, finding a way to score some runs," Federico said. "We executed some bunts. We took advantage of a couple of their mistakes. That's what you have to do. I told the team in the eighth inning, I called them up and said, 'This is where we are right now. This is what I keep talking to you guys about. Good teams find a way to win this game and bad teams are going to find a way to lose it.' We found a way to win in that eighth inning."
The Warhawks committed a pair of errors behind Kolton Childress in the ninth, but held on for the 8-5 win.
Tingelstad, Bell and Humeniuk each had two hits for the Warhawks, while Buckman and Beesley had two RBIs each.
On the mound, Miles Dunn threw one pitch to close out the top of the eighth inning and picked up the win. Kayleb Sanderson threw five innings in the start, giving up three runs on five hits with a walk and six strikeouts. In all, the Warhawks gave up just three walks on the day.
"I was proud of our pitching staff, kind of pieced the thing together," Federcio said. "I thought Cole Gray coming out of the bullpen was really good for us, even though he balked a run in there. Justin Barton and Miles Dunn do a great job kind of combining together for that inning. Childress made some excellent pitches, even though we made two errors behind him that inning. He (Sanderson) set the tone for us. We didn't walk a whole lot of people today, which was huge."
Sanderson said he had a good approach to his opportunity to return to the rotation.
"I knew that I had a job to do, that was to keep us in the game and go for as long as I can," Sanderson said. "I got to give it up to the offense for the win in this game. They came through for us, as well as our defense. They made every play they could."
"He located his fastball down," Federico said. "He left one pitch up and the guy hit it out. He was really shoving that thing in there really well today with the fastball. He's got to be able to dump the breaking ball in there for a strike and he did that. Executed some changeups that he got some weak contact ground balls on. He stayed in his legs and he executed pitches. That's what he's got to be able to do."
Last Sunday, the Warhawks endured a seven-and-a-half hour bus ride back to Monroe after dropping a 13-1 game by run-rule at Texas State to suffer a second consecutive Sun Belt Conference series sweep. This Sunday, the Warhawks capped a 4-1 week with their first SBC series win of the season.
"It's a great feeling right now," Beesley said. "I'm proud of the way our team bounced back this week. Everybody seemed to perform to their ability and get the job done. We did the small things we didn't do in Texas. We got bunts down this week, stole bags, just played solid ball."
"We've always had the tools to win, it's just putting it together," Sanderson said. "This week, we really put it together."
The Warhawks go on the road for the next four games, starting on Wednesday at No. 2 Mississippi State. First pitch is set at 6:30 p.m. in Starkville, Miss. Links to live video, audio and stats are available at ULMWarhawks.com.
