La. Tech crushes ULM

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RUSTON — Jonathan Washam grew up in Sterlington attending ULM baseball and football camps frequently enough to call himself a Warhawk fan as a child. It’s safe to say the former Ouachita Christian School standout enjoys playing against his hometown school.


Washam and pitcher Braden Bristo, who both starred at OCS a few years ago, teamed up to guide Louisiana Tech past ULM, 14-4, on Wednesday night at J.C. Love Field for the Bulldogs’ fifth consecutive win in the series.


Washam crushed a home run and finished with three RBIs, and Bristo kept ULM at bay, allowing one run on four hits with six strikeouts in 5 2 /3 innings to pick up his fourth win of the year.

Tech (28-14) used the long ball (two home runs) and capitalized on three ULM (17-29) errors and 10 Warhawk walks. “It’s just kind of that in-state rivalry and anytime you play ULM at Tech you got a little extra in the tank and your emotions get a little bit higher than they probably usually would,” Washam said.

ULM, which has lost eight of the last nine games, scored the first run of the game and watched Tech score 14 consecutive runs with two key innings — a fiverun fifth and a four-run seventh — to pace the victory.


Bristo settled down after allowing a run in the first to put up four straight scoreless innings. He’s now 2-0 in his last two outings against ULM dating back to 2015.


“I don’t know if it’s anything necessarily about them, it’s just always a competitive atmosphere and something I like to strive off of,” Bristo said. Brandon Bell took the loss for ULM. He gave up four runs in four innings. Following his exit, ULM’s pitchers continued to struggle with the10 walks and a hit-batsmen. “Command has been one of our issues throughout the season. I’m not sure. It’s not like we’re asking them to change their delivery and all this new information,” ULM coach Brude Peddie said.



“Sometimes when you’re struggling, you’re afraid of contact and it looks like that’s what we’re trying to do is beat too fine. Again,Babe Ruth isn’t playing for La. Tech right now. He’s dead, and again, you give them credit. They’ve taken advantage of every mistake in the two losses this year. I’m not taking anything away from them.”


Sporting a 3-1 lead in the fifth, Tech broke the game open by batting around. The inning started when Jordan Washam cranked one off the wall in right-center field, which loaded the bases with no outs after ULM intentionally walked Chase Lunceford, who homered earlier in the game.


Jonathan Washam roped a two-run single to left field off Kelly Bradford, his junior college teammate at Hinds Community College, to extend Tech’s lead to 5-1. Jonathan Washam’s solo shot to right field in the third marked his second home run of the year. Earlier in the game it was the long ball that jump-started Tech’s offense, but the Bulldogs used a pair of bunt singles in the fifth to keep the offense rolling. Marshall Boggs and J.D. Perry put down perfectly placed bunts that led to a sacrifice fly by Brent Diaz and a two-run single by Raphael Gladu to make it 8-1.



“We worked on those (Tuesday) in practice. I thought that really played into that one big inning we scored four runs,” Tech coach Greg Goff said.


An error on a simple throw from the catcher to the pitcher led a run in the seventh and a pair of wild pitches contributed to two more runs as the game turned sloppy for ULM.

“When you’re struggling things magnify and it looks worse than it is, but the freebie column is something that’s hurt us the entire year,” Peddie said. “All these walks and you add a couple errors and that’s the result you’re going to get.”

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