Demon Baseball | 4/16/2018 3:19:00 PM
NATCHITOCHES – The Northwestern State baseball team enters its busiest time of the year Tuesday, starting a run of 10 games in two weeks.
It will do so against a familiar opponent that is playing a bit unfamiliarly. The Demons host Lamar at 6 p.m. Tuesday night before welcoming former pitching coach Chris Curry's Little Rock Trojans to Brown-Stroud Field at 6 p.m. Wednesday.
Northwestern State (19-15) has taken the first two mid-week meetings of the season from Lamar (10-26) by a combined score of 22-5, but the Cardinals enter the third and final game of the season series on a season-long three-game win streak.
"Teams change so much during the season from week to week," second-year coach
Bobby Barbier said. "Look at Lamar. They swept (Texas A&M-) Corpus (Christi) over the weekend. (Corpus) took two of three from us at our place. If you have any question about how well they're going to come in here and play, you just look at that."
The matchup with Lamar will take place on $2 Tuesday at Brown-Stroud Field. General admission tickets, T-shirts and hot dogs, nachos and drinks will be available for $2 during the game.
The Demons will send freshman right-hander
Robert Burke (0-2, 4.88) to the mound against Lamar right-hander Garrett Walker (0-0, 10.50).
Northwestern State's two mid-week wins at Lamar (March 27, April 10) marked the fourth opponent NSU has started 2-0 against this season. The others – Binghamton, Penn, Little Rock – came during weekend series. In each of those matchups, the Demons were unable to come away with the sweep.
"We talked about it a lot, not playing with that edge," Barbier said. "I knew we'd play well and play hard (Sunday against Southeastern Louisiana) because we were going after that perceived series win. You have to put that aside and compete every time. When you're up 1-0 in a series, you go out there and compete just as hard. Hopefully, we've learned our lesson from earlier in the season."
Tuesday's game marks the end of 15 straight games against Southland Conference foes for the Demons, who have gone 8-6 in the first 14 of those matchups.
Wednesday's matchup with Little Rock (20-14) brings another familiar foe to Brown-Stroud Field, at least in some respects.
The Demons took two of three games from the Trojans at Gary Hogan Field in Little Rock from March 2-4, but that series came six weeks ago.
Since then, the Trojans are 14-8 and have climbed to No. 53 in the NCAA RPI.
"They were a really good team when we played them," Barbier said. "We played extremely well, and things really worked out. I always thought their lineup was extremely dangerous, maybe the most dangerous lineup we've faced all year, especially those first four or five hitters.
"It's showing now. They've gotten some nice performances on the mound, but it's very hard going through (Matt) Merino and (Troy) Alexander) and (Riley) Pittman and all of those guys."
Northwestern State has not named a starter for Wednesday's game.
Streaming audio and video for both games can be found on www.NSUDemons.com.
