MONROE – The Nothwestern State baseball team carries a six-game winning streak into its second matchup of the season with UL Monroe.
 
When the Demons head to Warhawk Field, they will do so with plenty of momentum and a couple of other reasons for optimism.
 
In addition to riding its longest win streak since an eight-game run in 2016, Northwestern State (19-11) enters Wednesday's 6 p.m. contest against the Warhawks (14-18) having won six of their first seven mid-week games of the season.
 
Additionally, Northwestern State is 10-3 against Louisiana opponents, including a 15-0 win against ULM at Brown-Stroud Field on Feb. 26.
 
Much has changed for both teams since that night.
 
"They swept a road series this weekend and scored a bunch of runs," third-year head coach Bobby Barbier said of the Warhawks. "They beat a really good arm Georgia State has on Friday. It's going to be a good challenge for us. We're a team that has to come to play every day."
 
Barbier said his team has done a better job of doing so the past eight games and will need to do so against ULM, which scored 35 runs in a three-game sweep of Georgia State in Atlanta.
 
ULM has won consecutive Sun Belt Conference series against Georgia Southern and Georgia State, going 5-1 in those series. The Warhawks are 7-3 in their past 10 games, averaging 8.2 runs per game in that stretch.
 
The Demons have seen their offense heat up as well during its six-game win streak. Since a four-run, two-out rally in the ninth inning of a 7-5 win at Houston Baptist on March 31, Northwestern State has averaged eight runs per game in the past five games.
 
The Demons swept Nicholls, which entered the weekend series leading the Southland Conference in ERA, scoring 19 runs in the three-game set. The Demons started the same lineup in two of the three games and all but one position player started all three games.
 
"There's two sides to it," Barbier said. "You want to keep guys engaged. Guys on the bench work really hard, too. You want to run them out there to reward them and to help you win the game.
 
"On the other side, there's certainty and things that go along with knowing who's in the lineup. There's peace of mind for those guys. They're not gripping the bat so tight, thinking we may take them out. We're not like football or basketball or other sports where we can run you in and out. It has helped us settle in, but we want the guys who aren't in there right now to stay hungry. They're one foul tip or one pulled hamstring away from their opportunity."
 
The Demons will sent right-hander Jerry Maddox (2-2, 7.31) to the mound to face ULM right-hander Dylan Marsh (0-0, 15.00).
 
While Northwestern State has played well in the past week and has had success against in-state opponents, winning on the road has proven slightly tougher. NSU enters Wednesday's game at 5-7 in games away from Brown-Stroud Field.
 
"I'm very proud of how we've been playing lately," Barbier said. "Hopefully, we can take that on the road and realize the bases are still the same distance and the game is still the same."