MOBILE, Ala. - Texas State lived to fight another day as the Bobcats defeated the UL Monroe Warhawks, 4-2, in the first of two elimination games on Friday at the Sun Belt Conference Baseball Championship at Stanky Field in Mobile, Ala.

The Bobcats score two runs in the bottom of the sixth to move in front of the Warhawks for good as the Bobcats will now play top-seeded UL Lafayette on Saturday morning at 9:00 a.m. CT. With the win the Bobats won their their 30th game of the season and improve to 30-27 on the year.

Austen Williams earned his eighth win of the season for the Bobcats as he went eight strong innings allowing just two runs on seven hits while striking out seven batters. Hunter Lemke picked up his 11th save of the season for the Bobcats.

ULM's Alex Dumaine earned the loss for the Warhawks who finished their season 23-36.

The Warhawks got the scoring going quickly as they scored a run in the top of the first with two outs, the eighth consecutive game in which they have scored in the first inning. After a line out and a strikeout, ULM's Dalton Herrington doubled to center field. Ross Moore then singled to center to score Herrington. The RBI by Moore was his seventh of the tournament.

The scoring would halt until the sixth inning when Texas State would finally get on the board. After an Austin O'Neal walk, Tanner Hill stepped in and launched a homerun over the left field fence giving the Bobcats their lead. It was just fourth homerun of the tournament and second by a Texas State player.

The Bobcats added two more runs, one each in both the seventh and eighth innings, both on sole homeruns. ULM made a pitching change to Josh Leone for the start of the seventh and the first batter he faced, TXST's Cory Geisler, took him deep, over the left field fence to push the Bobcat lead to 3-1.

In the eighth, O'Neal also hit a homerun to left forcing Leone from the game. ULM pushed a run across in the top of the ninth on a sacrifice fly from Jacob Stockton.