ULM holds off late rally, take series from Georgia State with 9-7 win

MONROE, La. – The ULM Warhawks built a nine-run lead Sunday afternoon and then held off a furious Georgia State rally in the final three innings to pick up a 9-7 win and take two-out-of-three games in the opening Sun Belt Conference series of the season Sunday afternoon at Warhawk Field.

“It was good to get a series win,” ULM head coach Michael Federico said. “Sometimes it’s ugly. We got a win, and that to me is the most important thing right now.”

The Warhawks (9-7 overall, 2-1 Sun Belt Conference) took advantage of two-out situations, scoring eight of their nine runs with two outs, including five runs in a six-run second inning and a 3-run home run by Danny DeSimone in the fourth inning. Tyler Lien (3-0) was sharp through six innings before running into trouble in the seventh inning. He allowed three runs, all in the seventh inning, on six hits with no walks and three strikeouts.

“It’s big for us,” DeSimone said of the series win. “We want to do well in conference. We want to win a championship. That’s what we have to do, is we have to win series. Hopefully we can get some sweeps, but the big thing is winning series right now. That’s what we’re focused on and that’s what we want to do.”

ULM broke the game open in the second inning. Ryan Humeniuk doubled down the right field line to open the inning and Trace Henry brought him home on an RBI single to center for the 1-0 advantage. Wiley Cleland followed with his first of three hits on the day.

With one outs and runners at first and second, Henry and Cleland attempted a double steal. Wurm swung and missed at the pitch and Cleland was thrown out at second base by Georgia State catcher Blaine Marchman. The Panthers thought Wurm had struck out and the inning was over, as the ball was thrown to the middle of the infield and GSU started to walk off the field. However, with only two outs and Wurm still alive at the plate with a one ball and two strikes count, Henry saw the confusion and raced home to give ULM a 2-0 lead. After a long delay with discussions between the umpiring crew and both head coaches, Henry’s run was ruled to count and Wurm continued the at bat with a 1-2 count. Wurm battled back to earn a walk and Michael Cervantes followed with another walk, leading to a GSU pitching change.

ULM took advantage of the chaos. A wild pitch moved Wurm and Cervantes into scoring position and Andrew Beesley’s infield single to the third base side allowed Wurm to score for the 3-0 lead. Travis Washburn followed with an RBI bunt single on the first base line to extend the lead to 4-0. After another GSU pitching change, a Panther error on Ryan Humeniuk’s ground ball allowed Beesley and Washburn to score for the 6-0 advantage.

In the fourth inning, Mason Holt reached base on a fielder’s choice with two outs and Humeniuk followed with a walk. DeSimone stepped to plate and hit a towering drive down the left field line for a 3-run home run to push the ULM advantage to 9-0.

“I was mostly looking for an offspeed pitch,” DeSimone said. “Recently I’ve been getting pitched offspeed heavily. I’m working to make that adjustment. He threw an offspeed pitch inside and I was able to turn on it. I’m still trying to work to right field, and I was just able to recognize that out of the hand and put a good swing on it.”

Lien was cruising on the mound. The Kirkwood, Missouri native allowed just three hits through six innings. However, Lien returned for the top of the seventh and surrendered back-to-back singles before giving up a 3-run home run to Kalen Puckett, cutting the gap to 9-3.

“I thought Tyler Lien gave us a really good start,” Federico said. “It’s probably my fault for sending him back out there. He was at 77 pitches. He didn’t pitch much last week. In your mind, you’re trying to build pitch counts because we know we’re going to need to extend some guys. He was probably done, especially with a couple of those long innings that we had offensively. I’ll take the blame for that.”

“It felt a lot better,” Lien said of his outing. “My arm felt a lot more loose than last week. I just felt like myself again.”

The Panthers added three more runs in the eighth inning on RBI singles by Josh Smith and Kyle Riesselman and a sacrifice fly by Ashby Smith. The Panthers brought the potential tying run to the plate in Elian Merejo, but Trey Lindsay came out of the bullpen to get Merejo to ground into an inning-ending fielder’s choice to keep ULM on top, 9-6.

In the ninth inning, GSU picked up a two-out RBI single from Josh Smith to get within two at 9-7, but Lindsay forced Ashby Smith to ground into the game-ending fielder’s choice to secure the victory.

Cleland had three hits to lead ULM while DeSimone had three RBIs. Josh Smith had four hits and two RBIs for Georgia State. Lindsay earned his first save for ULM by pitching the final four outs, giving up an unearned run on two hits with a strikeout. GSU starting pitcher Chandler Dawson (0-1) suffered the loss, giving up four runs on three hits with two walks over 1 2/3 innings.

With the win, ULM moved to 4-0 in Sunday games in 2021. Federico calls Sunday games “Championship Sunday,” challenging his team to find a way to win the game no matter what has happened in the previous two games of the series.

“That’s part of our identity,” Lien said. “Obviously, we’re still trying to find it. We still have to learn how to win on Friday, but to know that on Sunday this whole team is going to come in here and play their hearts out, we expect to win on Sundays. It’s something not a lot of teams have, and I’m not sure we’ve had that in the past here. This year, we do.”

For Federico, the 2-1 start to Sun Belt Conference play is a positive, but there’s more to work on.

“We need to sustain things,” Federico said. “We don’t need to be up and down and so violent back and forth. We need to try and stay even keel. I had an old coach of mine that said ‘even keel wins the race.’ If you can do that and stay steady, we’ll have a chance. We gave ourselves a chance because we pitched and played defense early. Then we got a couple of those big two-out hits, which was awesome.”

ULM opens a five-game road swing at 6 p.m. Tuesday against I-20 foe Louisiana Tech in Ruston. Links to live video, audio and stats are available on the schedule page at ULMWarhawks.com.