RUSTON – Northwestern State coach Donald Pickett said his softball squad is eager to "flush" a poor series at Nicholls this past weekend, and the Lady Demons can start to rid themselves of that bad taste Wednesday with a trip to Louisiana Tech.
 
NSU (18-19) dropped three games in its weekend series at Nicholls, and the Lady Demons will attempt to even its mark against the Lady Techsters after Tech won the first meeting this season 11-3 in Natchitoches on March 20.
 
The road contest will be at 6 p.m., and fans can listen to Tony Taglavore on the call on radio station KZBL 100.7 FM, on the NSU app or on nsudemons.com
 
"We have to learn from (the Nicholls series) after we didn't come out with the toughness we needed," Pickett said. "We were playing from behind all weekend, and we never adjusted to what was going on.
 
"We're playing a really good Louisiana Tech team before we play an important series at home (Texas A&M-Corpus Christi). We want to continue a good week of preparation and be ready to go."
 
Tech (30-9) is having one of its best seasons under seventh-year coach Mark Montgomery as the Lady Techsters are one three teams with a 10-2 Conference USA mark on top of the standings.
 
The Techsters are on an eight-game winning streak, which includes C-USA sweeps of UTSA and Charlotte. In that winning streak, Tech has scored nine or more runs in seven of those games, bumping the Techsters scoring average to 6.7 runs per game (17^th in the NCAA).
 
Before NSU was swept at Nicholls, the Lady Demons had a five-game winning streak that included extra-inning wins against McNeese and Southeastern, the latter of which was part of a sweep of SLU.
 
NSU entered the Nicholls series in first place in the Southland Conference, but the Lady Demons dropped into a sixth-place tie with Stephen F. Austin at 9-6.
 
In the March 20 meeting, Tech scored eight first-inning runs that led to the five-inning NSU loss.
 
The Lady Demons are attempting to create more early-game success after Nicholls outscored NSU 11-0 in the first inning of the three-game series this past weekend.
 
"We want to jump out early offensively at Louisiana Tech," Pickett said. "We had chances to score this weekend, but we left a ton of baserunners on.
 
"It goes back to toughness and discipline – we gave Nicholls a couple of outs they didn't have to work for. Louisiana Tech is a great team, and we can't give them anything. We'll need to play our best game and keep them off-balanced as much as possible."
 
Sophomore Cayla Jones continues to lead NSU's offense with a .342 batting average, including jumping into the lead-off spot for the last eight games.
 
Jones (23 RBIs) is behind freshman Riley Cantrell (28 RBIs) in run production.
 
Before Tech's matchup with ULM on Tuesday, Jazlyn Crowder (41 RBIs), Morgan Turkoly (51 runs scored) and Zoe Hicks (30 RBIs) were a handful of Techsters that stick out in various categories.
 
Crowder did the most damage in the first matchup with three RBIs.
 
NSU reliever E.C. Delafield did find late success with 2 1-3 scoreless innings, paired with a solo home run from Kaitlyn St. Clair and two Riley Cantrell RBIs.
 
Tech has won the last four meetings against NSU, but the Lady Demons won six of the previous seven before that stretch.