NATCHITOCHES – The Northwestern State softball team will open up conference play this weekend with a two-game series, Friday at 6 p.m. and Saturday at noon, against Texas A&M-Corpus Christi at the Lady Demon Diamond Complex.

 

The Lady Demons (10-14) have won eight of their last 10 contests, including doubleheader sweeps over Southern and Houston Baptist. NSU is coming off a 6-1 defeat Wednesday night against Houston, who advanced to the NCAA Super Regionals last season.

“We wanted to make our non-conference schedule a lot stronger this season to challenge our team as much as we could,” said head coach Donald Pickett. “We definitely had our challenges early in the season. We made mistakes and need to learn from them to get better.”

Brianna Rodriguez comes into the series on a 10-game hitting streak, while Cassandra Barefield is close behind with a nine-game streak. Blair Beard has also come on strong as of late, knocking hits in each of the last five contests.

 

Barefield leads the team with a .354 batting average, three homers, 14 RBI, .569 slugging and .419 on base percentage.

“It's huge for us to get production like this from the middle of our order. We know we have to score runs to win games, and we have players in our lineup who get hot at the right times and can change the game with one swing of the bat,” Pickett said.

On the mound, Brooke Boening and Kelee Grimes have combined for 107 strikeouts in 69.2 innings. The staff leads the Southland Conference in strikeouts, averaging 7.44 per game.

“This weekend we are looking for consistency from our pitching,” Pickett said. “Our pitchers have shown over the last two or three seasons that they are very capable, and they just need to be confident on the mound and not try to do too much.”

The Islanders (5-11, 1-1) are coming off a two-game split against Texas-San Antonio to start conference play. They dropped the first game 6-1, before bouncing back to garner a 2-1 victory.

Sophomore Laura Phillips leads the Islanders with a .464 batting average, while senior Hannah Schwarz is second at a .333 mark and is currently on a nine-game hitting streak. On the mound, Vianca Pesina leads the staff with a 5.95 ERA in 42.1 innings.

The contests will be broadcasted on KZBL 100.7 in Natchitoches. Audio streaming will also be available on www.nsudemons.com by clicking the “Fan Central” button on the website. Live in-game updates will be available on Twitter by following @NSUDemonsSB.