ATLANTA -- The ULM softball team (31-23, 12-12 Sun Belt) swept Georgia State (11-42, 1-23) with an 8-3 win in game three on Saturday (May 4) at Bob Heck Softball Complex in Atlanta. With the win, ULM secured the highest number of Sun Belt wins in a single season in program history and the most regular season wins since 1997, wrapping up a historic season.
The Warhawks struck first when
Meagan Brown crushed her fourth home run of the season to left center for a solo homer. Georgia State answered with two runs in the second and took a 2-1 lead after two innings.
Andie Edwards led off the next inning with ULM's second solo home run of the day and evened the score at 2-2.
Lourdes Bacon walked and
Brooklin Lippert followed with a bunt single. After a Georgia State wild pitch, Brown delivered her second and third RBIs with a bases-clearing double to put the Warhawks back in the lead, 4-2.
Jacelyn Buck smacked consecutive doubles and scored Brown for the Warhawks' fourth run of the inning. After singles by
Carys Platt and
Elle Carter,
Madison Blount drove in Buck on an RBI groundout and increased ULM's lead to four. Edwards racked up her second extra-base hit of the inning with a two-RBI double to left and completed a seven-run third inning for the Warhawks.
Maddie Nichols pitched a scoreless bottom of the third inning that ended with a punchout to keep ULM ahead 8-2. Lippert started the top of the fourth with a base hit to center, but ULM was kept off the scoreboard. Nichols sat the Panthers down in order in the bottom of the fourth inning. Blount singled for ULM's only hit in the fifth in a scoreless frame. The Panthers trimmed the Warhawks' lead to five runs in the bottom of the fifth after a sacrifice fly. After both teams went down in order in the sixth, ULM led 8-3 heading to the seventh. Nichols tossed another scoreless frame that ended with
Layla Thompson turning a double play to end the series with a ULM sweep.
Lippert, Brown and Edwards all tallied multiple hits in the series finale with Edwards and Brown collecting three RBIs apiece. Buck and Blount finished with one hit and one RBI while
Elle Carter and Blount both stole a base. In the circle, Nichols improved her record to 11-10 on the season with 5.2 innings pitched and surrendered one earned run with three strikeouts.
Victoria Abrams started and completed 1.1 innings with one strikeout and one earned run.
ULM won the tiebreaker over James Madison and Georgia Southern and earned the No. 6 seed in the Sun Belt Conference Softball Championship. The Warhawks will meet the No. 3 seed, South Alabama, on Thursday (May 9) at 4 p.m. from San Marcos, Texas in the SBC Quarterfinals.
