LITTLE ROCK – Easton Winfield set the tone with a home run on the first pitch of the game and ULM followed with three more runs in the top of the first inning, rolling to an 11-1 win over Little Rock on Tuesday afternoon at Gary Hogan Field.
It marked ULM's (8-5 overall) fifth win in the last six games and first against their former conference foe in Little Rock since 2015. The Trojans (6-6 overall) mustered just two hits, three walks and two hit batsmen against the Warhawks.
Jake Haggard had two hits, a double and a home run, two RBIs and scored twice to lead ULM.
Michelle Artzberger and
Colby Lunsford each had two hits with an RBI, while
Jack Clark had two hits. Noah Brewer hit a solo home run for Little Rock and Ben Harmon tallied the Trojans' only other hit.
Brandon Brewer (1-0) earned his first NCAA Division I win by throwing 2 2/3 hitless innings in the start, allowing two walks.
Joey Cirelli followed with 2 1/3 innings, allowing one run on two hits with four strikeouts and no walks.
Brandt Corley threw two hitless innings with two strikeouts and one walk.
Dalton Burrell added a perfect inning with three strikeouts, while
Seaver Sheets threw a scoreless frame despite hitting two batters.
Malcolm Brown (0-1) took the loss for Little Rock, allowing four runs on four hits in an inning of work.
Following Winfield's homer in the first, Lunsford singled and Artzberger was hit by a pitch, extending his on base streak to 42 games. Haggard followed with a RBI double down the left field line, plating Lunsford for the 2-0 lead. A wild pitch allowed Artzberger to score and an RBI groundout by
Shawn Dalton Weatherbee brought home Haggard for the 4-0 advantage.
ULM tacked another run on to the lead in the third on Haggard's fifth home run of the season. Artzberger hit a solo shot over the centerfield wall in the fifth inning for the 6-0 lead.
Brewer clubbed his homer in the bottom of the fifth and Harmon singled with two outs, accounting for the only two hits of the game for the Trojans, making it 6-1.
ULM grabbed the run right back in the top of the sixth on
Hasani Johnson's two-out RBI double, bringing in
Ian Montz for the 7-1 lead.
Haggard hit into a double play in the seventh inning as Lunsford scored on the play to expand the lead to 8-1.
The Warhawks loaded the bases on three walks to open the eighth inning and pushed across two runs on RBI groundouts by Winfield and Lunsford. ULM capped the scoring in the ninth inning on
Cardell Thibodeaux's RBI walk.
ULM returns to Lou St. Amant Field for the final non-conference weekend of the year at 6 p.m. Friday against Alabama A&M.
