NATCHITOCHES – The Northwestern State baseball team's first mid-week game of the season came down to execution.
 
Visiting ULM made the most of its opportunities, especially with two outs, while the Demons were mostly unable to as the Warhawks downed Northwestern State, 9-2, on Tuesday night.
 
"It seems to be the same type of story and the same type of hurdle we have to overcome," first-year head coach Chris Bertrand said. "Our guys continue to pl ay hard. Our guys continue to fight. We care and are doing things the right way, but we seem to be lacking a little bit of baseball execution – whether it is pitch execution or defensive execution or whether that be offensive execution – we continue to lack that spark that really gets us going."
 
The Warhawks (4-4) found those sparks in two-out situations, beginning in a three-run third inning that gave them the lead for good.
 
NSU right-hander Aidan Newton (0-1) wiggled out of a first-inning jam and was one pitch away from doing the same in the third inning. However, Colby Lunsford bounced an 0-2, two-out pitch up the middle for a game-tying single.
 
Michelle Artzberger and Jake Haggard followed with RBI doubles to extend the ULM lead to 3-1.
 
NSU (2-6) had taken a 1-0 lead in the first inning when Rocco Gump scored on a wild pitch following his one-out triple. That stood as Northwestern State's only run until the ninth inning when the scenario repeated itself as Colin Rains scored on a wild pitch following a one-out triple.
 
In between, ULM's pitching staff quieted the Demons from the second through eighth innings, escaping trouble in the fourth when Shawn Dalton Weatherbee threw out Lathen Buzard at home on Samuel Stephenson's two-out single to keep the Warhawks ahead by two.
 
That throw, coupled with a combined four scoreless innings of relief from Davis Oswalt and Aidan Haynes, allowed the Warhawks to outlast the NSU combination of Newton and right-hander Caleb Bunch, who tossed three innings of one-run relief.
 
The lone run against Bunch again came courtesy of Lunsford, whose second 0-2, two-out RBI single gave the Warhawks a 4-1 lead in the seventh.
 
"The night was about where they – in the biggest moments of the game – they executed a winning brand of baseball, and we did not," Bertrand said. "The inning in the third and ninth began with self-inflicted wounds. We have to continue to work on those type of things. We have to continue to put our nose to the grindstone and figure it out. I'm not wavering in my belief of our ballclub and my belief that we have what it takes to win baseball games.
 
"Right now we all bear the responsibility and the accountability of executing a little bit better."
 
Lunsford paced ULM's 13-hit attack with three hits while Gump and Rains each went 2-for-4 for the Demons, who finished with seven hits.
 
Northwestern State returns to action Wednesday when they face UL Lafayette. First pitch from M.L. "Tigue" Moore Field at Russo Park is set for 6 p.m.
 
ULM 9, Northwestern State 2
ULM     003 000 114 – 9 14 1
NSU     100 000 001 – 2  7 1
W – Brandt Corley (1-0). L – Aidan Newton (0-1). 2B – ULM, Michelle Artzberger, Jake Haggard, Hasani Johnson. 3B – ULM, Colby Lunsford. NSU, Rocco Gump, Colin Rains. HR – ULM, Haggard (2). Highlights: ULM, Lunsford 3-4, 3B, 2 RBIs; Haggard 2-4, 2B, HR, 2 RBIs; Johnson 2-3, 2B. NSU, Gump 2-4, 3B; Rains 2-4, 3B.  
Records: ULM 4-4; Northwestern State 2-6.