MONROE, La. – Chenar Brown and Shawn Dalton Weatherbee each hit a 2-RBI double, Kade Dupont had a team-high three hits in his collegiate debut, and veteran left-hander Cam Barlow threw five innings of shutout baseball as the ULM baseball team won its fourth-consecutive season opener Friday, 7-0, against Bradley at Lou St. Amant Field.
 
Barlow, Nicholas Judice and Russell Derbyshire combined on a five-hit shutout. Barlow (1-0) earned his first win of the season, firing five innings and allowing four hits with two walks and seven strikeouts. Judice followed with three innings, giving up one hit with one walk and five strikeouts. Derbyshire recorded the final three outs in his ULM debut, picking a strikeout and a walk.
 
"I thought the important part of this was Barlow coming out there and starting for us," ULM head coach Michael Federico said. "We are so new and young from the position player standpoint, so I didn't really know what to expect, but you can kind of expect Barlow to show up. I thought he pitched well. He pitches with such great tempo and it allows our defense to make plays."
 
ULM set the tone in the first inning. A double play in the top half of the inning, started by shortstop Chase DeJean and turned by second baseman Kade Dupont, cut Bradley's inning short. In the bottom half of the frame, a 2-RBI double to the left-center field gap by Brown scored Weatherbee and Dupont for the 2-0 advantage.
 
"That double play in the first inning was huge," Federico said. "The anticipation of Opening Day is amazing. It's like Christmas. The guys were here probably by noon today. They've been here all day, which is a good thing. But to get that double play, for a young guy like Kade Dupont to be in there, it was great."
 
The Warhawks picked up a two-out rally in the fourth inning as Matt Abshire and Cardell Thibodeaux had back-to-back singles with two outs, leading to Weatherbee's 2-RBI double down the left field line on a hit-and-run for a 4-0 lead.
 
ULM added two more runs in the seventh inning when Dupont scored on a wild pitch and Michelle Artzberger came home on DeJean's RBI fielder's choice, which resulted in an error on Bradley third baseman Connor Manthey.
 
The Warhawks capped the scoring in the eighth inning on Artzberger's RBI double off the base of the wall in left field, scoring Thibodeaux for the 7-0 advantage.
 
"The offensive flow was fun to see," Federico said. "We got a little bit of physicality. We can run a little bit. We stole some bases, but we also hit some extra bases and had some RBIs, which that's huge."
 
In addition to Dupont's three-hit day, Thibodeaux, a true freshman, added two hits and two walks in his collegiate debut, while fellow true freshman Jake Haggard went 1-for-3 with a walk. Ryan Vogel and Manthey led Bradley with two hits apiece.
 
Bradley's Jacob Kisting (0-1) took the loss, allowing four runs on five hits with three walks and seven strikeouts in four innings.
 
ULM and Bradley play the second game of the weekend series at 6 p.m. Saturday at Lou St. Amant Field.