NATCHITOCHES – The Northwestern State softball team can take a big step toward qualifying for the Southland Conference Tournament this weekend when the Lady Demons host Nicholls in a three-game series.

NSU (18-26-1, 8-10 SLC)) has won three of its last four conference series and is seventh among tournament-eligible teams fighting for one of six league tournament spots.

Nicholls' (29-15, 13-6) spot is much more secure buoyed by a pitching staff whose 2.38 ERA in the second lowest in the SLC.

Friday's game begins at 5 p.m. with Saturday's doubleheader starting at noon. The first two games of the series will be broadcast on KZBL 100.7 FM with the third game streamed on nsudemons.com.

"At times, I feel like we're getting momentum, and we've done some good things over the past month," said NSU coach Donald Pickett. "We've had some letdowns whether it's an inning here or an inning there, but it's one of those things we'll have to continue to fight through.

"Each weekend, these series seem to get bigger and bigger, and hopefully come in here and be more consistent to keep things moving in the right direction."

The Colonels pitching staff is anchored by Jackie Johnson (15-8, 2.05 ERA) and Megan Landry (11-7, 2.79 ERA), the latter being the reigning SLC Pitcher of the Year.

NSU counters with a pitching staff led by Mikayla Brown (11-11, 3.53 ERA), the 2015 SLC Pitcher of the Year who is starting to find her groove again after recovering from an ACL injury, winning seven of her last nine starts.
Brown has dropped her season ERA by more than a full point since it reached 4.60 on March 18.

"Nicholls has some good pitchers, and we've got to figure out how to score runs against them," Pickett said. "For us, we've got to continue to play solid defense and not give away extra outs for our pitchers.

"We don't want to throw as many pitches as we're throwing, and that means cutting down on walks and hit batters (NSU's 250 lead the SLC)."

Starter Katelyn Boles and Brown combined to walk nine and hit another batter Tuesday at No. 16 LSU, but the Lady Demons battled in a 5-2 loss in Baton Rouge as the Tigers managed just six hits.

Senior Jordan Rains had NSU's lone RBI, and the Lady Demons had the bases loaded in the sixth inning down 4-2 against the Tigers.

Rains has a team-high batting average of .329, which includes hitting .409 over the last 16 games, the last five as NSU's clean-up batter.

Senior Brittney Jones, one of three four-year seniors who were part of NSU's last NCAA Tournament team in 2014 and a regular season conference championship team in 2015, said a successful series against Nicholls could springboard the Lady Demons into the postseason.

"We just get a little bit further and a little bit further, and I'm ready for the team to bust out and start rolling," said Jones, who broke NSU's career walks mark with a pair against LSU. Jones now has 100 career walks, topping Amanda Glenn's 99 from 2004-07. "Honestly we deserve it. We work our butts off doing everything the coaches ask.

"There's no doubt in our mind that we'll make the tournament."

NSU might be one spot out of the tournament picture right now, but the Lady Demons are within a game of the next three teams. NSU owns the tiebreaker over fifth-place Southeastern (9-9), but the Lady Demons won't play Sam Houston (9-9) or sixth-place Stephen F. Austin (7-8).

The Lady Demons will be fighting for more than just a conference tournament spot this weekend.

As part of the annual #ForkCancer weekend, both the NSU baseball and softball teams are wearing special pink uniforms, which will be auctioned both online and in person with proceeds benefiting the local chapter of the American Cancer Society.

The players' game-worn jerseys will be available for bid at www.nsudemons.com/auctions. The bidding is live now and will remain open through 5 p.m. Saturday.