NATCHITOCHES – Another long wait could end Friday for the Northwestern State baseball team, provided the weather cooperates.
 
Should the Demons face Tarleton in Friday's 6:30 p.m. series opener, it will mark the end of a 353-day wait for Northwestern State to play inside the friendly, reconfigured confines of Brown-Stroud Field.
 
And the Demons (1-3) aren't the only ones who want to come back to the B-Stro. In addition to Friday's opener, the series covers a Saturday 2 p.m. start and a Sunday 1 p.m. matinee, weather permitting.
 
"People in this town love coming out to the ballgame," said fifth-year head coach Bobby Barbier, who also spent four years as a player at Northwestern State. "I hear it a ton -- 'I'm ready to get back out to the yard' – especially with people bottled up with COVID and the snowpocalypse we had.
 
"It's a nice escape. There are guys and girls in that Cooking Club who look forward to that on Friday night, getting out of the house and doing something safely, being able to come support us. We appreciate that a ton. We look forward to having a good crowd."  
 
This weekend's series will be the first meeting between Tarleton and Northwestern State since at least 1990. It also will be the first at Brown-Stroud Field where the home bullpen will not be in play. The Demons have moved their bullpen from foul territory down the right-field line to a new cutout in front of the right-field wall.
 
The Texans (1-4) are in a transitional phase, moving from Division II to the Division I Western Athletic Conference. It marks the second straight season the Demons will host a transitional team, having done so against North Alabama a season ago.
 
Tarleton opened the season by dropping two of three at Southland Conference member Abilene Christian this past weekend and then fell to UT Arlington (14-1) and Texas A&M (8-7, 10 innings) in mid-week action on Tuesday and Wednesday.
 
While those games went ahead as originally scheduled, the Demons danced around a week's worth of winter weather and the ensuing travel complications that turned a traditional weekend series into a Sunday-Monday affair.
 
As is the case for most teams, Northwestern State often uses the non-conference season to ramp up their starting pitching ahead of conference play.
 
One week into the season, NSU's pitchers had to reshape their routines.
 
"We try to get them to 75 pitches for the first start," Barbier said. "We're pretty hard on that. We try to get there and increase it by 10 or 15 pitches, so normally by the third or fourth start, they're full go.
 
"I try to do a good job of taking care of their arms, especially early. There are several factors that go into it – the weather, if they've had stressful innings. Take this week. Johnny (Harmon) started Sunday. If he stays on schedule, he'll throw Friday, but he'll lose two days. We'll see how he feels and get some good feedback from him."
 
Harmon and Cal Carver, who started both ends of Sunday's doubleheader at Southern Miss, each went four innings, giving several bullpen arms the chance to see game action.
 
Included in that group was a trio of freshmen right-handers – Micah Berens, Alex Makarewich and Drayton Brown – who turned in scoreless outings against the Golden Eagles.
 
Three other relievers – Evan Daigle, Ethan Francis and Drake Smith – combined for 3 1-3 innings of shutout relief at ULM on Wednesday.
 
Building a deep pitching staff is important every season, but given the state of college athletics, it is a must in 2021.
 
"God forbid we lose starters to COVID," Barbier said. "If you don't have guys stretched out, you're at risk of injury because you're putting guys out there who aren't prepared to do that. We've had a system we've used since I've been here where we split games up early, and it usually helps us in the end."