Cajuns Edge ULM 5-3 to Win Series

The Louisiana Ragin' Cajuns scored four times in the first inning and went on to defeat the ULM Warhawks 5-3 to clinch the weekend series.  The Cajuns will go for the sweep tomorrow at 2:00 pm.

Colten Schmidt (2-1) allowed seven hits and one run over 5.1 innings to get the win.  Dylan Moore pitched the final two innings to earn his eleventh save of the season.

Louisiana (34-20-1, 18-10-1 Sun Belt) jumped on Warhawks' starter Josh Leone (2-6) in the first inning when Brenn Conrad walked with one out.  Steven Sensley then followed with a home run, his eleventh of the season, to stake the Cajuns to a 2-0 lead.  Joe Robbins then doubled and scored on Kennon Fontenot's RBI single and Todd Lott followed with another double to plate Fontenot for the 4-0 advantage.

"Normally when you go out and score a lot of runs, you struggle to score the next game," head coach Tony Robichaux said.  "I was really happy that our offense got off to such a good start.  But we have to do a better job of getting runners in from 90 feet away with less than two outs.  We've been poor at that all year and we were poor again tonight."

ULM (12-42, 6-23) got on the board against Schmidt in the fourth when Spencer Hemphill led off with a single and took second on a Chad Bell grounder.  Tyler Cox then doubled Hemphill home to cut into the lead.  The Cajuns got that run right back, however when Kennon Fontenot hit a towering homer to left for his sixth of the season and a 5-1 Louisiana lead.

Schmidt was relieved in the sixth after allowing a single and a walk.  Wyatt Marks came on and struck out Brian Barefoot.  He walked Nathan Reynolds, but struck out Cade Stone to end the threat.  Marks got the first two outs in the seventh, but Hemphill singled, Bell tripled and Cox singled to cut the lead to 5-3 before Cade Harper hit a soft liner to Conrad to end the inning.

Moore Allowed a leadoff walk in the eighth and a two out walk in the ninth but struck out Cox to end the game.

Conrad had three hits to pace the Cajuns' 13-hit attack, while Robbins, Fontenot and Handsome Monica had a pair of hits each.  Bell had three hits for ULM, who had ten hits in the contest.