MONROE, La. – A hard-hit ball off the bat of senior Korie Kreps ricocheted off the Louisiana Tech shortstop and allowed Jacelyn Buck to score in the eighth inning for a 3-2 ULM win. The Warhawks (27-23, 10-14) tied the game at 1-all in the fifth and 2-all in the bottom of the seventh to force extra innings.
 
Jacelyn Buck led off the inning with a full-count, long single to the wall and spun onto second base after a LA Tech throwing error sent the ball past the infield. Andie Edwards dropped a sacrifice bunt to move Buck to third base and then Kreps came through with an infield hit.
 
"Louisiana Tech has an incredible offense and our pitchers Kinsey (Kackley) gave us a great start and Rocky (Adrianna Chavarria) did an incredible job," said ULM head coach Molly Fichtner. "We had really good defensive plays and we're going to need that. We had a lot of opportunities and we didn't capitalize on them at the beginning of the game. We have to be able to continue innings, but today, we survived and advanced. This is the part of the season, 50 games in, where our mentality, focus and grit are everything."
 
The Warhawks came from behind twice, plating a run in the fifth inning after only one hit in the first four innings. Taylor Broddick walked to lead off the seventh inning and moved to second on Kennedy Page's sacrifice bunt. Broddick was on third, thanks to Alexis Chavez's single to left field, and scored on a Lourdes Bacon sacrifice fly to tie the game in the bottom of the seventh.
 
After a three-up, three-down top of the eighth inning by LA Tech (35-18, 15-6 C-USA), the Warhawks went to work to get the win. It was the first extra-inning game played between LA Tech and ULM since 2007 and 15^th game decided by one run for the Warhawks this year. With the 27^th overall victory of the season, ULM reached the third-highest wins total since its first season in the Sun Belt in 2007.
 
The Lady Techsters scored their first run in the third with Amanda Gonzalez reaching on a fielder's error and then moving to second on a single. Brooke Diaz plated Gonzalez with a single to left field for a 1-0 LA Tech lead. After ULM evened it up in the fifth, Aleya Hill walked and advanced a base on another issued in the inning. Jordyn Manning singled to plate Hill as the Lady Techsters stayed ahead of the Warhawks 2-1 for the time being.
 
Adrianna Chavarria (6-6) picked up the win in relief and retired the last six Lady Techsters in order after a lead-off walk in the seventh. She gave up two hits, an earned run and struck out four in five innings of work. Kackley started and allowed two hits, an earned run and had two strikeouts.
 
ULM plays host to the Ragin' Cajuns for its final Sun Belt Conference series Thursday-Saturday, May 5-7. Links for live stats will be available on the softball schedule page at ULMWarhawks.com.