WACO, Texas – Having NCAA Tournament experience last year makes the Northwestern State softball team hungrier for NCAA Tournament wins the second time around, starting Friday night at 7 against Waco Regional host Baylor at lavish Getterman Stadium.

The Lady Demons (30-20) open the double-elimination, four-team regional against the No. 17-ranked Lady Bears (42-15), certainly a daunting task, but one that has a familiar feel with some positive memories.  NSU and Baylor almost annually meet at Getterman Stadium for scrimmage contests in fall practice. Although Baylor holds a 20-2 regular-season advantage in the series, the Lady Demons swept their hosts in a fall doubleheader, including a win over Baylor All-America pitcher Whitney Canion.

Last year, a more accomplished (40-15) NSU team dropped two games at the Baton Rouge Regional but with the entire infield back among 10 letterwinners, the Lady Demons are aiming to live up to their own expectations of postseason success.

Northwestern surged in the past six weeks, going 17-5 while scoring 6.6 runs per game since the start of April. The Lady Demons are on a season-best seven-game win streak and pounded Southland Conference regular-season champion McNeese 11-0 in last Sunday's league tourney title game.

NSU ranks in the top 40 in four NCAA offensive team statistics and has nine individual top 100 NCAA rankings. Coach Donald Pickett's sixth NSU club is 12^th nationally in home runs per game (1.24, with a total of 62), 20^th in slugging percentage (.509), 31^st in scoring (5.8 runs per game) and 34^th in batting average (.310).

The bat work overshadows sharp defensive play. Northwestern is 80^th among the 289 Division I softball teams with a .964 fielding percentage, with the entire infield earning All-Southland honors.

Dynamic All-South Region freshman outfielder Kellye Kincannon has four individual top 100 rankings, topped by 31^st for home runs per game (0.30, a total of 12) and slugging percentage (.717, 58^th nationally). Junior designated player Cassandra Barefield has three top 100 stats, including her 14 home runs, which ranks 47^th nationally.

Senior shortstop Tara McKenney, who joined Kincannon on the All-South Region team announced Thursday, leads off the lineup with a .396 average (87^th nationally), is 15-of-18 on stolen bases and brings a 13-game hitting streak into the regional. She went 4-for-4, opening the game with a triple, in the championship victory over McNeese.

NSU has a hot pitcher in senior Kaylee Guidry, the Southland Tournament Most Valuable Player after a two-hit shutout of  McNeese and an 0.81 ERA in the tournament. She is 12-3 overall with a 2.57 ERA. NSU's second starter, Baylee Gray (7-5, 3.25), won Southland Pitcher of the Week honors in the penultimate week of the regular season.

In Friday's first game, Houston (32-21) and Tulsa (50-7) square off. The winners Friday play at noon Saturday, the losers meet at 2:30, and the loser of the noon game meets the winner of the elimination game at 5 to determine half of the tournament championship round pairing on Sunday.

"We're playing our best at the right time," said Pickett, whose team is 70-35 in the past two years led by seniors McKenney, Cali Burke, Brianna Rodriguez, Cheyenne DeLaGarza, Shenequia Abby and Guidry. "The key for us is getting a solid start. We know how good Baylor is. What happened in the fall was a completely different deal, but it does at least give our team an extra dose of confidence that we can beat anybody here if we play really well.

"This is as tough a region, teams 1-4, as there is in the bracket," he said. "Our girls have played a tough schedule, a lot tougher than last year, to prepare for this opportunity. Now we get a chance to line up and get after it and we're all excited."

It is the fifth NCAA regional appearance for Northwestern, which also made the field in 1998, 2000 and 2002.

All of the Lady Demons' tournament games will be broadcast on the Demon Sports Network's flagship station, 100.7 FM KZBL, in Natchitoches. Free streaming video and the audio from the DSN broadcast is available at NSUDemons.com for the weekend.