NATCHITOCHES – The Northwestern State baseball team will finish out its eight-game home stand this weekend when the Demons host Sam Houston State for a three-game series starting on Friday at 6:30 in Brown-Stroud Field.
 
Saturday's game is set for a 2 p.m. start while Sunday's is slated to begin at one o'clock. Action from Friday and Saturday's games can be heard on NSUDemons.com by live audio stream.
 
The Demons (11-30 overall, 2-13 Southland Conference) most recently dropped a three-game series against Lamar last weekend.
 
SHSU (24-17, 9-6) is coming off a mid-week 10-7 win against Texas-Arlington and defeated Oral Roberts last Sunday 6-4 in Southland action.
 
Robert Baker (3-4, 4.29 ERA) is expected to start on the mound for the 10^th time this season on Friday and Cody Butler (1-2, 4.41) will get his eighth start of the year in Saturday's game.
 
Andrew Godail (4-2, 3.59) is the expected starter for the Bearkats on Friday with Tyler Eppler (3-2, 4.02) starting on the mound in Saturday's contest and Caleb Smith (4-4, 3.60) in Sunday's.
 
Will Watson leads the Demons in hitting with a .309 batting average. The senior has 18 runs batted in for the season.
 
Kevin Miller (.351), Jessie Plumlee (.349), Luke Plucheck (.312), Carter Burgess (.311) and Hayden Simerly (.304) all have batting averages above .300 for the Bearkats. Plucheck leads the team in RBI with 34.
 
The Demons take on Southern in a mid-week two-game series on Tuesday at 6 p.m. and Wednesday at three o'clock. They will continue Southland play next weekend in Nacogdoches as they match up against the conference-leading Lumberjacks of Stephen F. Austin.