LAKE CHARLES -- Northwestern State pitcher Mikayla Brown didn't finish her sentence when talking about facing the top statistical offense this weekend when the Lady Demons head to McNeese for a three-game series starting Friday.
 
The first-place Cowgirls (23-11, 9-0 SLC) lead the league in batting average (.303), runs scored (207) and home runs (33) among other categories.

"It's exciting," Brown said. "You have to focus on your location and where you're putting it.

"If you mess up once, they are going to …"
 
Brown and the other Lady Demon (13-20-1, 3-6 SLC) pitchers understand the challenge of facing a lineup that includes reigning SLC Player of the Year Erika Piancastelli, but this is a matchup of the two best SLC programs in recent history.
 
NSU (2013, 2014 SLC Tournament titles, 2015 regular season title) and McNeese (2013, 2014, 2016 regular season titles, 2016 tournament title) have won seven of the last eight Southland Conference titles since 2013.
 
The Lady Demons won both games in Lake Charles in 2015 and are 7-4 against the Cowgirls since 2013.
 
"They've been good for a few years now, but we've been successful down there," said NSU coach Donald Pickett. "(Since 2015), McNeese has been the best team in the conference with their pitching depth, power at the plate and an exceptional player in catcher Erika Piancastelli.
 
"We've got to play our best ball and continue to improve on the things we've been working on. Hopefully we go down there and steal a couple of games, get on a roll and finish this season strong."
 
Piancastelli is in the SLC's top five in eight of the 10 major offensive categories, including nearly doubling the next closest competitor with 33 walks.
 
McNeese boasts four of the top six RBI producers in the league with Morgan Catron (32), Piancastelli (27), Tori Yanitor (26) and Hailey Drew (24) driving in a considerable number of runs.
 
But the Lady Demons counter with the second-best offense statistically, scoring 169 runs with 152 RBIs.
 
NSU senior Kellye Kincannon ranks in the SLC's top three in six power categories, including slugging percentage (.660), RBIs (30), doubles (8), triples (3) home runs (8) and total bases (68).
 
Kincannon has already broken NSU's career marks in RBIs and total bases and could set as many as four others.
 
The Lady Demons' offensive depth is improved from 2016, especially when veteran infielders Jordan Rains, Micayla Sorosiak (leads SLC with nine doubles) and Hailee Rhodes along with freshman power threat Emma Hawthorne produce in the bottom half of the lineup.
 
"This is a deep lineup, and we've talked about quality at-bats and approaches based on the pitching matchup," Pickett said. "We go over what pitches we want them to be aggressive on in which counts, and the kids are starting to get more comfortable with that up and down the lineup.
 
"We're starting to relax more and not put too much pressure on themselves to do it on their own. We have to have batters 1-9 coming at teams throughout the entire game to improve our offensive consistency. When we do the right things, pitchers can't take pitches or innings off."
 
The Lady Demons's 3-6 league mark can be a little misleading. Including McNeese, NSU will have played three of the top four teams in the standings, including second-place Abilene Christian (8-1) and Lamar (8-1).
 
NSU took two of three on the road from Texas A&M-Corpus Christi (6-20, 1-5) this past weekend.

"The last couple of weeks, we've been playing better," Pickett said. "We've been fighting a little more, and there's been more focus consistently throughout the games.
 
"We're one play here, one hit or pitch there from winning a lot of ball games the past couple of weeks. But I feel good where the kids' heads are at. We're trying to turn the tide, get over the hump and win those games in the end."
 
NSU is 2-8 in games decided by one run or in extra innings this season.