LAKE CHARLES – The Northwestern State baseball team had an emphatic answer to how it would respond to one of its toughest offensive outings of the season.
 
Six of the first seven Demons reached base as Northwestern State set a positive offensive tone in a 9-4, Southland Conference series-tying victory against McNeese at Joe Miller Ballpark on Saturday.
 
"We responded," second-year head coach Bobby Barbier said. "We got smothered a little bit yesterday by a couple of really good arms. In our game, we can talk about what we didn't do because we don't want to talk about how good they are.
 
"We came out today with a little fire, got some barrels and got some balls down. Some guys had big days like Kwan (Adkins) and Dave (Fry)."

Adkins and Fry were the Demons' table setters from the first pitch of the game forward.
 
Adkins delivered a leadoff triple off McNeese left-hander Bryan King (3-3) before Fry followed with an RBI single, sparking a four-run first inning that also included a two-run Lenni Kunert single.
 
The Demons (21-17, 9-8) managed just four hits in Friday night's 2-1, 13-inning loss, but they saw Adkins and Fry each post four hits Saturday, going a combined 8-for-9 out of the top two spots in the lineup.

Add in three Luke Watson walks in the second spot and NSU's top three hitters were 9-for-11 with three walks and a hit by pitch.
 
Fry broke out of his toughest stretch of the season in style. He followed his first-inning single with a second-inning, two-run double and a solo home run in the sixth inning. Needing a triple for the cycle in the eighth inning, Fry singled to center to complete the second four-hit game of his career.
 
Fry's four RBIs tied his career high and came on a day where he snapped a 2-for-23 slide that dropped his average from .352 to .310.
 
"That's just baseball," Fry said. "You're going to have those stretches. When you play 56 games, you're going to go up and down. We faced some really good pitching last week and in the mid-week this week, so I was just trying to stay with it, take my walks when they came and just take some good swings."
 
The Demons' good swings staked right-hander Jerry Maddox (4-3) to an early lead and the junior responded by working a career-long seven innings, allowing three runs. It was the Demons' eighth straight quality start in conference play.
 
Armed with the early lead, Maddox filled up the strike zone, and the Cowboys (18-21, 13-7) mounted a rally in the fifth inning.
 
With two runs in and runners on the corners with one out, Maddox made his biggest pitch of the game, inducing a 5-4-3 double play to keep Northwestern State ahead 7-3 and silence the Cowboys' momentum.
 
"He withstood it," Barbier said. "They got a couple of runs and had the guy who had hit the homer (Jacob Stracner) up, and he made a really, really good pitch and Sam (Taylor) did a really good job to turn the double play.
 
"That was the moment he had to bear down and make a big pitch, and he's been able to do that all year."
 
Peyton Davis went 2-for-5 with an RBI to join Adkins (4-for-5) and Fry as Demons with multiple hits. Jake Cochran went 3-for-4 with a pair of RBIs for the Cowboys, who also got two hits from Joe Provenzano.
 
The series concludes Sunday with a 1 p.m. matchup. Junior right-hander Nathan Jones (2-3, 3.25) will start for Northwestern State. McNeese has not announced its starter for the finale.
 
Northwestern State 9, McNeese 4
NSU       421 002 000 – 9 15 0
MSU      001 200 01 – 4 11 0
W – Jerry Maddox (4-3). L – Bryan King (3-3). 2B – NSU, David Fry, Tyler Smith, Peyton Davis. MSU, Dustin Duhon; Mitchell Rogers; Jake Cochran. 3B – NSU, Kwan Adkins. HR – NSU, Fry (6). MSU, Jacob Stracner (5). Highlights: NSU, Adkins 4-5, 3B, RBI; Fry 4-4, 2B, HR, 4 RBIs. Davis 2-5, 2B, RBI; Sam Taylor 2-4. MSU, Joe Provenzano 2-4; Rogers 2-4, 2B; Cochran 3-4, 2B, 2 RBIs; Stracner HR, RBI.
Records: Northwestern State 21-17, 9-8; McNeese 18-21, 13-7