HAMMOND — In the regular-season finale last weekend, Northwestern State saw a pitching tactic implemented by Southeastern Louisiana. On that day, it kept the Lady Demons off balance.
On Thursday, however, during NSU's first game of the Southland Conference tournament, the Lady Demons made the adjustment. It resulted in a 7-4 victory over the Lady Lions.
"They tried to switch it up on us again — mix speeds and changing pitchers — trying to not let us build any momentum," head coach Donald Pickett said. "I thought our girls did a really great job of working through that. We had good at-bats up and down the lineup at different times."
The win advances No. 4-seeded NSU (23-20 overall) to a game against top-seeded, and regular-season conference champion, Stephen F. Austin. The loss drops the No. 5-seeded Lady Lions (28-22) to the losers' bracket.
The game between the Lady Demons and Lady Jacks will take place Thursday at approximately 6:30 p.m.
Freshman infielder Keely DuBois was the first player to have one of those good at-bats. In her first at-bat of her career at a conference tournament, she picked on a 2-0 pitch and sent it well over the left-centerfield wall, staking NSU to the early 1-0 lead.
"It was huge," Pickett said. "Any time you can jump on a team early and get up on them 1-0, is huge.
SLU leveled the game at 1-1 in the top of the third inning and took its first lead of the game with a pair of runs in the fourth. The Lady Demons didn't take long to answer and did so by manufacturing runs.
NSU took advantage of an error, worked a bases-loaded hit by pitch and a bases-loaded walk for a big fourth inning. That's how the four-run fourth ended, but junior designated hitter Jensen Howell commenced the frame with an RBI single.
That was plenty of run support for junior E.C. Delafield who received the start and maneuvered her way to a complete game. She finished by allowing three earned runs on seven hits with four strikeouts to move to 11-4 on the season.
She received one final insurance run in the bottom of the sixth, and it was an impactful one. Freshman Kat Marshall worked her way out of a recent hitting slump with a two-out RBI single to right center that gave the game its final tally.
"That's huge for Kat, and that's huge for our team," Pickett said. "For her to step up there with two outs and get that hit to the opposite side to get us on the board — hopefully that will get her jumpstarted."
The Lady Demons will now take on an SFA team that swept them in Nacagdoches on April 17-18.
