The Sun Belt Conference regular-season conference champions and No. 1 seeded Texas State Bobcats (45-11, 27-4 Sun Belt) took down the No. 10 seed, University of Louisiana-Monroe (20-35-1, 9-20-1 Sun Belt) Warhawks in comeback fashion, 8-2, in the quarterfinals of the Sun Belt Conference Baseball Championships on Friday, May 27 at Montgomery Riverwalk Stadium.
After a two-day hiatus due to weather, the Sun Belt Conference Baseball Championship has resumed; this time with a new format. The Sun Belt Baseball Championship was formatted initially to be a double-elimination tournament, starting Wednesday (after the initial play-in games on Tuesday) but turned into a single-elimination tournament over the span of the weekend after storms blew through central Alabama on Wednesday and Thursday.
The Warhawks out of Monroe came out hot in their quarterfinal matchup against the Bobcats, scoring two runs in the top of the second on a two-run home run by sophomore first baseman Michelle Artzberger and would hold onto the lead through 5.2 innings of play. 
Head Coach of the Warhawks, Michael Federico, thought his team had opportunities to extend their lead and take down the top-seed while the Bobcat’s bats were slow but ultimately nailed down the loss to the strikeouts his squad couldn’t overcome.
“That was the name of the game tonight. We had 15 punches,” Federico said. “If we could have just expanded that lead and maybe got another pitcher into the game … we just had that one inning that got to us and in the sixth, seventh and eighth, just dominated.”
Through five innings of play the Bobcats only saw two hits (both from Sun Belt Conference Player of the Year, senior shortstop Dalton Shuffield), committed two errors and were struck out eight times. But the Bobcats knew that if they just stuck to what they know, the results would come.
“The experience really comes out to play in the later innings,” senior designated hitter Wesley Faison said. “The experience takes over. In the seventh, eighth and ninth is where we do our best; we lock into our approach, and [obviously] we start scoring some runs at the end.”
The Texas State Baseball squad did just that in the late innings against ULM, scoring three in the sixth, four in the seventh and an insurance run in the eighth. Faison led the team with three RBIs on two hits, including the first run of the game for the Bobcats in the bottom of the sixth.
Earlier in the day, three other games were played at Montgomery Riverwalk Stadium, setting the stage for the semi-finals on Saturday, May 28. The first game of the day saw the No. 6 seed Troy defeat the No. 3 seeded Coastal Carolina with a comeback, scoring the final two runs of the game in the top of the ninth. The second game of the day saw the first non-upset matchup in the tournament with the No. 2 seed Georgia Southern Eagles taking down the ninth-seeded Appalachian State Mountaineers, 7-1. The third and final game before Texas State and ULM saw the No. 4 seed Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns dominate South Alabama, 9-1, to set their matchup with the eventual winner of game four, Texas State.
The Bobcats and the Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns (34-21, 20-11 Sun Belt) will face off in the Sun Belt Conference baseball semi-finals on Saturday, May 28 at 7 p.m. at Montgomery Riverwalk Stadium after the 3 p.m. matchup between the Eagles and the Trojans.
Reporter Kyle Owen will be live-tweeting throughout the rest of the Sun Belt Conference Baseball Championships. Follow for live updates.