MONROE, La. – ULM rallied from a five-run deficit and held off Missouri State's threat in the top of the ninth inning for a 10-8 win on Sunday afternoon at Lou St. Amant Field, as the Warhawks salvaged a game from the weekend series.
"It's nice any time you get that first one, because you don't want the doubt to start getting your minds a little bit," ULM head coach
Michael Federico said. "I'm proud of our guys. They're buying into what myself and the coaches are trying to sell to them."
Colby Lunsford led ULM (1-2) with three hits, including a solo home run to lead off the bottom of the third inning.
Bryce Blaser had two hits with three RBIs, including the second half of back-to-back homers with Lunsford in the third and a 2-RBI single in the fourth inning.
Easton Winfield had two hits and hit his first career homer in the fifth to tie the game at 7.
Missouri State (2-1) was led offensively by Taeg Gollert's two hits, including a double. Jahlani Rogers added two RBIs.
"We didn't have to play a ton of the small ball stuff that we had to do yesterday," Federico said. "It was nice to kind of get some big bolts with a couple of home runs. The bad thing was they were solos. We still need to get better. We had situations with runners at second and third a couple times where we ended up striking out twice or once was a pop up on the infield and then a strikeout. We've got to continue to keep doing better with that."
ULM used eight pitchers in the win, with
Parker Seay (1-0) earning his first win, firing 2/3 of an inning to close out the top of the sixth inning, picking up one strikeout.
Brandon Brewer recorded the final out of the game to earn his first save.
Carson Orton led the team with two innings on the mound, allowing one run on one hit with three strikeouts.
Brandt Corley struggled in the start, allowing four runs on two hits with four walks and one strikeout in one inning.
"I know the walks have been up a lot, but we've got to improve upon that," Federico said. "We've got those older guys that have been in the fire and we've got to get better from that standpoint. Cirelli came in and had some damage control. Seay was exceptional. Giggles (Orton) was Giggles and we haven't trained our guys to really be out there sometimes for three innings, especially a guy like him. But he has earned that right to go out there and try to get that save in that situation, and I think he just got a little bit tired."
Reed Metz (1-1) took the loss for Missouri State, allowing two runs, one earned, on no hits, one walk and one hit batsman in the bottom of the sixth inning. Tyler Charlton lasted 3 2/3 innings in his first career start, allowing six runs on seven hits with one walk and five strikeouts.
"Our team was high-spirited through the whole game," Orton said about the five-run deficit early. "No one was looking down or saying anything bad, but everyone was picking each other up the whole game. That was positive to see."
Missouri State pushed across four runs in the top of the first inning, all with two outs. Tyler Epstein singled to open the game and Corley followed by issuing walks to Logan Chambers and Gollert to load the bases. Corley bounced back with a strikeout and induced a pop out, and had two strikes on Nick Rodriguez before losing him to a walk, forcing in Epstein with the first run of the game. Dylan Leach followed with an RBI walk and Rogers struck for the big blow with a 2-RBI single to center for the 4-0 lead.
The Bears added another run in the second as Epstein led off with a walk, stole his way to third, and scored on Zack Stewart's two-out RBI single to go up 5-0.
The Warhawks finally got some momentum in the bottom of the third inning when Lunsford and Blaser hit back-to-back home runs to start the inning, cutting the gap to 5-2.
ULM used its own two-out rally in the fourth inning to go in front. With Winfield on second base and two outs,
Marcus Aranda hit an RBI single to center to bring in Winfield and get within two, 5-3. Lunsford followed with a double to left before Blaser connected on a 2-RBI single to left to plate Lunsford and Aranda to tie the game at 5 and chase Charlton from the game.
Michelle Artzberger followed with a single before
Kade Dupont hit an RBI single to center to score Blaser for a 6-5 Warhawk lead.
Missouri State answered in the top of the fifth, once again loading the bases with no outs. However,
Joey Cirelli entered from the bullpen to limit the damage, allowing Epstein to hit an RBI fielder's choice and giving up an RBI groundout to Chambers as the Bears regained a 7-6 lead.
ULM responded in the bottom of the inning as Winfield hit his first home run of the season to knot the game at 7.
"My approach was just to get on base or hit something hard," Winfield said. "He threw me a fastball inside and I just got my hands on it. I didn't really think it was real whenever I was rounding the bases. I was still convinced it hit off the top of the wall or something like that."
The Warhawks regained the lead, this time for good, in the bottom of the sixth. ULM scored three runs without any hits. Dupont walked to open the inning before Montz was hit by a pitch. Haggard then worked a walk to load the bases. Winfield hit a soft grounder on the first base line, but Chambers bobbled the ball and had no play, allowing Dupont to score on the error for the 8-7 lead.
Jack Clark drew a bases loaded walk to force in Montz and Haggard scored on a wild pitch for the 10-7 advantage.
Orton entered on the mound in the top of the seventh and kept Missouri State at bay until the top of the ninth. Orton hit Caden Bogenpohl with a pitch to open the inning, giving way to
Davis Oswalt on the mound. After Rodriguez singled to put runners on first and second, Davis forced Leach to fly out and struck out Rogers. Brewer replaced Oswalt, and after giving up a walk and a wild pitch to allow Bogenpohl to score, he got Epstien to pop out to end the game.
ULM stranded 12 runners on base for the second-straight game, but Missouri State also left nine on base on Sunday.
The Warhawks return to Lou St. Amant Field at 6 p.m. Tuesday to face Grambling.
