Warhawks cruise past No. 14 Oklahoma State, 13-6

ARLINGTON, Texas – Danny DeSimone and Logan Wurm each drove in three runs and Nicholas Judice pitched five scoreless innings in relief while recording a career-high seven strikeouts as ULM knocked off No. 14 Oklahoma State, 13-6, Tuesday night at Globe Life Field, MLB home of the Texas Rangers. Fresh from its 8-3 win at No. 4 Ole Miss in the series finale, the Warhawks defeated their second consecutive Top-20 opponent.

“I didn’t think we had a very good batting practice and the in-and-out wasn’t the best quality that I’m used to with some of our guys,” ULM head coach Michael Federico said. “It almost looked like we were playing a little too fast and a little overwhelmed. I’m glad the BP was terrible and I’m glad that the in-and-out was terrible now that the game is over. We played really well. The guys responded well. I thought that they played with some purpose and some passion. Guys picked each other up.”

ULM (7-6 overall) felt right at home in the spacious confines of Globe Life Field, sending eight batters to the plate in the top of the first against OSU (11-3-1) right-hander Eric Walker, who was making his first start of the 2021 season. Andrew Beesley led off the game with a solid single to center field and advanced to second base on a wild pitch. The Warhawks jumped out to a 1-0 lead as Walker threw wildly past first base after fielding Travis Washburn’s sacrifice bunt attempt. Walker, who failed to record an out before being pulled from the game, hit Mason Holt with a pitch and walked Ryan Humeniuk on seven pitches to load the bases.

OSU reliever Kale Davis struck out DeSimone looking to record the first out of the inning. Trace Henry gave ULM a 2-0 lead after his sacrifice fly to right field scored Washburn. With two outs, Michael Cervantes cleared the bases with a 2-run double to left center, scoring Holt and Humeniuk and extending the lead to 4-0.

ULM left-hander Cole Martin surrendered two hits in the bottom of the first inning, but pitched a scoreless frame, thanks to a couple of solid defensive plays. With a runner at third and one out, Grant Schulz threw out Jaxson Crull at home while attempting to score on a sharp grounder to third base. The inning ended when Trace Henry caught Jake Thompson’s fly ball up against the right-field wall.

The Cowboys cut their deficit to 4-1 in the bottom of the second as Crull’s sacrifice fly to center field scored Brock Mathis, who walked to lead off the inning.

The Warhawks appeared to break the game open in the third, scoring three runs on three hits off Davis. With one out, Humeniuk drew a walk and scored on Danny DeSimone’s double down the left-field line. Henry followed with an RBI stand-up double into the right-field corner, scoring DeSimone. With two outs, Wurm dropped a double just inside the right-field line to score DeSimone and extend ULM’s lead to 7-1.

Martin opened the bottom of the third by loading the bases, sandwiching a hit batter between two walks. Judice came out of the Warhawk bullpen and retired three of OSU next four hitters. Judice got Mathis to foul out to Washburn, who made a nice over the shoulder catch, and followed with a strikeout against Alix Garcia. The Cowboys picked up their second run as Judice forced in a run with a walk. Judice stranded three base runners as Justin Campbell flied out to left field.

With two outs in the top of the fourth, Holt blasted a solo homer into the second deck above the ULM bullpen in left-center field off reliever Roman Phansalkar as ULM took an 8-2 advantage.

Judice (1-0) seized control of the game, retiring 13 of the next 14 OSU batters faced including the last eight in a row. The only blemish during that stretch: a one-out single by Thompson to left field in the sixth inning.

“I felt amazing,” Judice said. “That mound, the ballpark, everything got you up for a big game. I wasn’t really worried about their bats. I was just trying to locate my fastball, locate my changeup and my slider and throw it as hard as I could.”

“I hope it’s a coming out party,” Federico said of Judice. “Since the moment he stepped on our campus last fall, he’s probably been our most improved player. He works his tail off every day. He studies film. He’s put on weight. He’s relentless. When we signed him years ago, we thought this was the possibility to happen and now he’s got to go out and do it all the time, whether it’s as a reliever or as a starter, we need him to give us those innings like that.”

If there was any doubt remaining in the outcome of the game, the Warhawks erased it with a five-run top of the seventh inning. Humeniuk’s RBI single to right plated Mason Holt for the 9-2 edge. DeSimone followed with a two-run homer to right against his former club. Wurm added the first homer of his career, another two-run blast to right, three batters later for the 13-2 lead.

“It’s an incredible stadium and playing against them, being able to play against them here, it’s spectacular,” DeSimone said of facing his former team. “They’re a really good ballclub. I know a lot of the things they work on and how fundamentally sound they can be. We just played really excellent baseball tonight. We played a clean game and we hit the ball well. Judice threw incredible. He was dominant tonight.”

Oklahoma State added three runs in the eighth inning and one in the ninth, but ULM held on for the comfortable 13-6 win.

Holt, DeSimone, Henry and Wurm all had two hits each. ULM pounded out a season-high 12 hits, including seven for extra-bases.

“We can hit homeruns,” Federico said. “We’re not necessarily built to do that day in and day out. We hooked some balls that got down the line. They were playing some shifts on us and things like that. I think our guys stayed with the plan.”

“I think we’re feeling really good,” DeSimone said. “We’re definitely moving in the right direction. We’re still hungry. We still want to get better and keep pushing the boundaries of what this team can be. We don’t want to set ourselves short of anything.”

ULM opens Sun Belt Conference play this weekend, hosting Georgia State at 6 p.m. Friday, 2 p.m. Saturday and 1 p.m. Sunday at Warhawk Field. Friday’s and Saturday’s contests will be televised by ESPN+. All three games can be heard on 105.7 FM/540 AM KMLB, KMLB.com and the TuneIn app. Links to live video, audio and stats are available on the baseball schedule page at ULMWarhawks.com.