CONWAY, Ark. – Jake Haggard belted a 2-run home run in the fifth inning and Chase DeJean added insurance with an RBI double in the ninth inning, as six ULM pitchers combined to limit Central Arkansas to three runs in a 5-3 win Wednesday afternoon at Bear Stadium.
 
The win is ULM's first in six tries against UCA and snapped an eight-game road losing streak for the Warhawks (9-17 overall).
 
"Central Arkansas is a very good baseball team," ULM head coach Michael Federico said. "We had some chances to kind of break the thing open. Hats off to them for keeping the game where it was."
 
After two scoreless innings, ULM struck first in the third. Jayson Zmejkoski reached on an error to open the inning and moved to second on Matt Abshire's walk. Carson Jones' sacrifice bunt moved the runners up a base before Shawn Dalton Weatherbee's RBI groundout back to the mound brought home Zmejkoski for the 1-0 lead.
 
The Warhawks added a run in the fourth. Riley Davis reached on a single and moved to second on an error on the center fielder. He moved to third on Zack Floyd's groundout before he scored on Zmejkoski's two-out RBI single to double the lead, 2-0.
 
UCA (11-14) cut the deficit in half in the bottom of the inning when AJ Mendolia hit a lead-off home run to left to make it 2-1.
 
ULM answered in the fifth when, with two outs, Haggard hit a 2-run homer over the left-field wall to push the lead to 4-1.
 
UCA struck back for two runs in the bottom of the sixth inning. Reed Bowman's double to right center brought home Dylan Cyr, and Bowman scored on Tanner Leonard's sacrifice fly to get the Bears back within a run, 4-3.
 
"The two big runs in the sixth got them back into it and put some pressure on us," Federico said. "I felt like our guys were very resilient."
 
The game was scoreless until the ninth inning, when Davis doubled down the left field line to open the inning. With one out, Chase DeJean doubled down the right field line, as pinch-runner Davis Meche scored to give ULM an insurance run, going up 5-3.
 
"I'm super proud of him," Federico said of DeJean. "He used to switch hit when he was younger, and he's been struggling really bad on the right side. To see him come through and then, of course, make the really nice defensive play to win the game at the end was huge."
 
Chris Kean (1-0) picked up the win for ULM on the mound in a designated short start. Kean, who was making his ULM debut after suffering an injury before the season, tossed a scoreless first inning, allowing one hit with two strikeouts.
 
"He's been working so hard," Federico said of Kean, who is a two-way player for ULM. "Even when he was in the boot after having surgery on his foot, he was doing things for his arm. He can't catch for another month, but he's released to pitch and do some things. He wants to be back out here with his teammates. I thought his fastball had a little electricity to it and he spun a couple breaking balls. He didn't throw that many pitches, so we didn't have to use it, but we really wanted to just kind of get his fastball going and get his feet wet."
 
Brandt Corley worked around five walks, including three in the second inning, to allow just one run on three hits in 2 2/3 innings. Henry Shuffler gave up two runs in two innings, while Zach Shaw, Justin Robinson and Nichols Judice did not allow a run or hit over the final 3 1/3 innings to close out the game. Judice earned his second save, pitching a scoreless ninth inning.
 
Jack Haley, making his season debut for UCA, took the loss, allowing two runs, one earned, on three hits with two walks in 3 2/3 innings.
 
Ten different players, including all nine starters, combined on 11 hits for ULM, with Davis being the only player to have two hits while Haggard drove in two runs. Bowman had two hits and an RBI for UCA.
 
ULM opens the three-game weekend series with Sun Belt Conference-newcomer Marshall at 4 p.m. Friday at Lou St. Amant Field.