Baseball opened the 2014 season on the right foot Friday night at Warhawk Field with the 6-3 win over Grand Canyon.
The Valentine’s Day home opener didn’t start as ULM would’ve hoped. Grand Canyon struck first in the top of the second with a home run from Michael Pomeroy that gave the Antelopes a 1-0 lead.
That wasn’t the case for long. In the bottom of the second Warhawk leftfielder Justin Stawychny logged ULM’s first base hit with a long triple off the centerfield fence. Then with the bases loaded and two outs Josh Facine knocked in two runs on a single to keep the Warhawk’s rally alive. In the very next at bat Dalton Herrington sent a no doubt homerun over the leftfield fence to clear the bases and give the Warhawks a 5-1 lead.
“We got some chances, and Facine had the big hit that gave us a lot of momentum. I was just looking for a good pitch to hit and I was fortunate to get one and capitalize on it.” said Herrington.
Grand Canyon struck again in the top of the fourth to close the gap a bit, but Dalton Todd reached base in the bottom half of the frame and went on to score on a wild pitch to bring the lead back to four.
Warhawks starter Chad Miller gave the team a solid four innings, only giving up two earned runs before giving way to the Josh Leone in the fifth inning.
Leone gave up one run to the Antelopes in the top half of the seventh, but that would be his only run allowed in four innings of work.
In the top of the ninth, the ball was given to relief pitcher Tyler Bray to come in and close the game. Bray was able to strike out three of the four batters he faced, securing the 6-3 season opening win for ULM.
Coach Schexnaider was not only pleased with the opening day turnout from the Warhawk faithful, but also with how his team played.
“We had great crowd here for Valentines and I was excited how hard we played. We made some great plays to not let them have a big inning. “ said Schexnaider.
The Warhawks finished the weekend with two more games against GCU and will face Southern Miss in Warhawk Field on Tuesday at 6pm.
