ULM baseball's season ends after 8-2 loss to Texas State in Sun Belt Tournament
Louisiana-Monroe baseball's season came to an end after an 8-2 loss to No. 1 seeded Texas State in the Sun Belt Conference Tournament quarterfinals on Friday night in Montgomery, Alabama.
The Bobcats scored eight unanswered runs.
“I just want to thank my team, my administration, really everybody," said ULM coach Michael Federico. "It’s been a crazy year, had to battle injuries, had four pitchers that didn’t throw an inning this year, two catchers break their hands, so it’s been a trying year, probably the most trying year for me professionally. But at the same time I feel like we showed some resiliency. We had them stumbling a little bit tonight. I
Games were halted Wednesday and the Sun Belt decided to switch to a single-elimination format in order to finish the tournament.
ULM (20-35-1) clinched a tournament berth after a sweeping Arkansas State to conclude the regular season. The Warhawks escaped elimination on Tuesday with an 8-5 win against Georgia State.
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The Warhawks have been had better success in the second half of the season but producing runs was still troublesome.
Michelle Artzberger's two-run home run in the second inning at Riverwalk Stadium gave the Warhawks the lead.
ULM redshirt sophomore Cam Barlow (2-7) took a 2-0 lead into the sixth but left after two singles and an error loaded the bases with no outs.
Taylor Janes came in relief and a wild pitch followed by a sacrifice fly allowed the Bobcats (45-11) to tie the game. A two-out RBI single from Wesley Faison gave Texas State a 3-2 lead.
Barlow pitched five innings, allowing four hits, three runs and striking out eight.
“He was able to get under the hands a little bit with the fast ball late, kind of jam them," said Federico. "I thought their approach was really good against them and they were fouling some balls off, but he was able to get back, he had eight punches tonight which was huge because that’s a dynamic offense right there that just keeps coming at you with experience and maturity.”
The Warhawks went to the bullpen five times in hopes of stopping the Bobcats. They added four runs in the seventh and one more in the eighth for the final score.
“You have to battle adversity, and this team did it all year," said Federico. "We had so many positive things. We got a new turf field that’s phenomenal, but we practiced all fall at some different high schools and bounced around, we just showed resiliency all year. That’s the thing that we talked about the most with our guys, really all year and I just said the same thing to them. Life’s got its challenges and you’ve got to overcome those things day in and day out and you’ve got to come out on the bright side of it.”
Emely Hernandez covers University of Louisiana-Monroe athletics and high school sports. Email her at ehernandez@thenewsstar.com and follow her on Twitter @emhernandeznews.