MONROE – The Northwestern State baseball team put itself in position to break through Wednesday night against ULM.
 
And the Demons did eventually but did not produce enough to score a breakthrough win, falling 6-2 to the Warhawks at Warhawk Field.
 
"We've got to get a lot better," sixth-year head coach Bobby Barbier said. "We were not very good from the get go. We've got to be tougher. We have to have better at-bats with men on base. We left a small army out there again. We've just got to get better. That starts with us as coaches. We've got to figure out what we've got going on right now."
 
Northwestern State (3-9) dropped its eighth straight game, avoiding a fourth straight shutout with a two-run ninth inning that featured Bryce Holmes' first RBI as a Demons.
 
Despite the late push that saw NSU load the bases in both the eighth and ninth innings, the Demons left 11 runners on base.
 
ULM (2-9) stranded its share of runners as well, leaving 10 on, but the Warhawks used a productive out to score a second-inning run off NSU starter Donovan Ohnoutka (1-2) before breaking open the game with Landon Cato's three-run home run in the fifth inning.
 
The Warhawks, who out-hit the Demons 10-5, added two runs in the seventh to build a six-run cushion before NSU put together two of its better chances in the final two innings.
 
Aside from leaving the bases loaded in the third, the Demons put little pressure on ULM's Henry Shuffler, Cole Cressend (1-1) and Reid Goleman through the first seven innings.
 
Before Gray Rowlett and Daunte Stuart started the eighth inning with back-to-back singles, the Demons had managed one hit – Larson Fontenot's second-inning bunt single.
 
"I hope (it builds confidence)," Barbier said of the late flurry of base runners. "We had those zeroes stacked up pretty good over the last four or five games. It was good to hop on the board, but that can't be our moral victory. We need to find a way to get better at-bats. That's the bottom line."
 
Rowlett was the only Demon to record multiple hits, going 2-for-5. Cato paced ULM's 10-hit attack with a 3-for-4, three-RBI performance. Grant Schulz, Colby Deaville and Caleb Sterling also added two-hit games for the Warhawks.
 
Northwestern State returns to action Friday when it hosts Alcorn in the opener of a three-game, non-conference series at Brown-Stroud Field. Friday's first pitch is set for 6:30 p.m.
 
ULM 6, Northwestern State 2
NSU       000 000 002 – 2 5 0
ULM      010 030 20x – 6 10 1
W – Cole Cressend (1-1). L – Donovan Ohnoutka (1-2). 2B – ULM, Grant Schulz, Colby Deaville. HR – ULM, Landon Cato (2). Highlights: NSU, Gray Rowlett 2-5. ULM, Schuls 2-4, 2B; Cato 3-4, HR, 3 RBIs; Deaville 2-4, 2B, RBI; Caleb Sterling 2-3.
Records: Northwestern State 3-9, ULM 2-9.