SAN ANTONIO, Texas  -- Northwestern State is in first place after the first four Southland Conference series, but the Lady Demons will have to take its show on the road if they wamt to contend for a regular season title.
 
NSU (22-11, 9-3 SLC) heads to Incarnate Word, starting a stretch of three of its final five series on the road. The Lady Demons played three of their first four league series at home.
 
NSU starts the series with a Friday doubleheader (5 and 7 p.m.) with Saturday's finale at noon.
 
The Cardinals (10-19, 4-8 SLC) have won two of its four league series so far this season, including both series at home. UIW has won four of its last five contests after a midweek win against Texas Southern.
 
"(UIW) is gaining confidence all the team with the new coaching staff over there," said NSU coach Donald Pickett. "They are a competitive team, and the last time we went over there, we lost the series.
 
"We need to be a little more consistent with our offensive approaches. There are a lot of things that can be distracting on a long road trip, and we have to this one pitch and one game at a time."
 
UIW, which is 4-2 at home in SLC play, took two of three from Houston Baptist this past weekend with its other series win coming against Central Arkansas. UCA (8-4 SLC) is in third place behind NSU and Nicholls.
 
Even in a sweep against defending champion McNeese, UIW lost two of its three games by one run.
 
In last year's series, NSU took two of three from UIW in Natchitoches. But the Cardinals won two of three in 2016 in San Antonio, winning a pair after NSU blanked UIW. Including the Game 1 win, NSU started that season 16-5 only to finish 11-20 the rest of the way.
 
The Lady Demons have had another strong start this season and are in a tie for first place with Nicholls after four of the nine league series.
 
"We've been hungry, and we don't want to get complacent, and we want to do better every time out," said senior outfielder Sidney Salmans. "We're trying to continue to work hard every single day for what we have.
 
"We have each other's back, and this is a good team with a lot of chemistry. We'll have to fight this weekend and keep our focus. How much we want to win will be a factor when we go down there (San Antonio)."
 
Salmans led NSU to a 5-0 win at Stephen F. Austin on Wednesday in a nonconference title, recording three of NSU's 12 hits.
 
The Woodlands, Texas, native has five multi-hit games in her last 10 outings, which has helped raise her batting average from .203 to .287 this season. In 12 league games, Salmans is hitting .372.
 
"I've tried to put in extra work and tried to figure out what's not working and try to fix it," Salmans said. "It does help a lot knowing that the person behind you can get the job done.
 
"We can work throughout this lineup and score in bunches."
 
Those bunches of runs have typically come in the middle and later innings.
 
NSU has scored in 25 different innings through its first 12 SLC games. Sixteen of those innings have produced multiple runs scored.
 
Thirteen of those 16 multiple-run innings were at least three runs, and 12 of those innings came in the fourth inning or later.
 
NSU didn't have a multi-run inning Wednesday at SFA until the seventh, but the Lady Demons scored single runs in the second, third and fourth innings.
 
"We've got to focus on coming out early in games," Pickett said before Wednesday's win. "We've started slow in almost every conference series this year.
 
"We're trying to change that and come out early with a little more fire to get a better start. You want the momentum in our favor, and what happens in Game 1 does matter Games 2 and 3. It can pay off later in a series in seeing different pitchers."