The Real News Louisiana

SAN ANTONIO – Northwestern State’s demanding run through the Southland Conference schedule continues this week with a midweek series against the third-ranked team in the league.

The Demons (4-34, 1-14) wrapped up their three-game set with Stephen F. Austin on Sunday afternoon and immediately shifted their focus to UIW (20-14, 10-5) for another three-game series beginning on Tuesday in West Texas.

First pitch for the Tuesday doubleheader at H.E.B. Field is set for 1 p.m. with the Wednesday finale set for a 12 p.m. start. All games are scheduled to air on ESPN+.

The series with the Cardinals is the second of three conference sets within the span of a week’s time. NSU returns home this weekend to host the other conference Cardinals, Lamar, for alumni weekend April 11-12.

The midweek conference series is a result of the shift to a two-week conference tournament format, set to begin the first weekend of May, that is akin to the NCAA Regional and Super Regional style.

Both NSU and UIW enter the midweek matchup following weekend series that ended in sweeps. The Demons dropped all three games at home to SFA while the Cardinals went on the road an took all three games at HCU, moving them into sole possession of third in the league standings with four series remaining.

NSU’s weekend played out much like each of the previous four with lower scoring, intense, down to the wire games on Friday followed by a slugfest finale. The Demons added two more notches to the ever-growing collection of close game losses with a pair of two-run defeats on Friday.

They are now 1-9 in conference in games decided by two runs or less. They have held a lead of at least one run in five of those nine losses.

“It’s frustrating to come up short in so many close games, but I couldn’t be prouder of this group,” head coach Jenny Fuller said. “They show up, they compete and they leave it all on the field. The results haven’t always gone our way, but the fight, the heart and the growth I’ve seen is what I’m choosing to focus on. We just have to keep going and keep pushing through.”

NSU outhit and outscored SFA over the final five innings of Sunday’s finale finishing with 11 hits, tying for the most in a game this season and the second straight weekend with an 11-hit game. Four of NSU’s six double-digit hit games have come during the past four weekends of conference play.

The trio of Aly Delafield, DJ Lynch and Brynn Daniel have been central to the offensive numbers the Demons have put up over the past month.

Delafield’s .439 conference batting average is the eighth best in the league and she also ranks in the top 10 in the conference in slugging, on-base percentage and OPS. She and Lynch are tied for fourth in the league with six doubles and Daniel is tied for fifth most home runs with three during conference play.

They combined to go 14-for-28 (.500) at the plate this past weekend for the Demons with six doubles and six runs scored.

Against the Cardinals they will face perhaps their toughest test of the season with the league’s best pitching staff, boasting a 2.15 team ERA and .234 opponent batting average against. UIW pitching has allowed an average of 2.5 runs per game and just 1.5 runs in their 10 conference wins with three shutouts.

Sophomore Larissa Jacquez enters the weekend having tossed 17.0 straight scoreless innings over her previous two outings, a 10.0 inning shutout of McNeese and 7.0 inning shutout of HCU. Southland batters are hitting .197 against her this year.

“She’s probably one of the best pitchers that we will face this year,” associate head coach Brad Fuller said. “She does a good job of keeping hitters off balance throughout the game. We’ll go in with a game plan and if we stick to it I think we can have some success. Just need to stay locked in on our approach, put together some competitive at-bats and hopefully we can get some timely hits as a result.”