NATCHITOCHES – Dominant pitching and a storybook swing helped Northwestern State to a pair of one-run wins on Friday in a doubleheader sweep of Nicholls, 1-0 and 4-3.

On a day when the offense struggled to find its stroke at the plate, the commanding presence of Sage Hoover in the opener and Bronte Rhoden in the nightcap gave the Lady Demons (23-12, 5-0) the opportunity to pull out the pair of wins.

"We struggled most of the day today and we've just got to be better," head coach Donald Pickett said. "I thought they were trying to do too much offensively today for a great as they've been. We got great pitching from Sage in the first game and Bronte came in relief in the second game and was huge for us.

"I was really proud of the way they responded to tie that second game but we were just too reactive today and not attacking the game. Hopefully we'll learn from that and come out tomorrow and be able to play our game."

Making her second start of the week, Hoover was just a dominant in the circle as she has been in her past three outings. She struck out five the first time through the lineup on her way to a third straight double-digit strikeout performance. She nearly equaled the career high mark she set a week ago at Houston Baptist by sitting down 13 Colonels on Friday, despite by her own admission not having her sharpest tools.

"I definitely didn't have my best stuff today so I had to work with what I had," Hoover said. "I tried my best and had my team behind me and we played great. You're not always going to have your best, but you can always try your hardest."

She allowed two hits in the first three innings of the game and then retired 11 straight before a one-out single in the seventh. That baserunner was of major importance as it represented the tying run, but Hoover calmly induced a ground ball to third for the second out and ended the game with a third-strike all to secure her eighth win of the season and seventh complete game.

The Lady Demons missed some early chances to take the lead with three hits in the first three innings but it wasn't until a leadoff triple, the first by NSU this season, off the bat of Makenzie Chaffin that opened the door for the first, and only, run of the game.

After racing around the bases and reaching third safely without a throw, Chaffin came in to score a few pitches later as the ball skipped away from the catcher far enough on a wild pitch to give NSU what turned out to be the winning run.

Chaffin was at the center of another prime scoring opportunity in the sixth after a single off the bag at first put runners at the corners. After a walk loaded the bases with one out, NSU left the bases full on a foul out and fly out to end the inning.

Chaffin and Bailie Ragsdale combined for four of NSU's six hits in the game.

The majority of the early drama in the second game of the day all came in the third inning.

A pair of two-out hits by the Colonels allowed them to cash in three runs in the top of the inning as they chased starting pitcher Maggie Darr from the game early.

Showing the same resilience from the past few weeks, the NSU offense responded right away with a pair of hits and a hit batter to load the bases with no out. The Lady Demons capitalized on a dropped fly ball in left to score their first run and then added two more on hits from Keely DuBois and Kat Marshall to tie the game at three.

Rhoden, who got the final out of the third went to work in the circle for the Lady Demons putting together 5 1/3 innings of shutout pitching to keep the game alive for the home team. She retired 13 straight batters after seeing the go-ahead run reach third in the top of the fourth starting with an 11-pitch strikeout of the Colonels' three-hole batter to end the threat.

"It was everything really," Pickett said with a smile. "What Bronte did was a huge deal for her to come in and do that. Sage put up the zeros after we let a couple of plays go and I was hoping it wouldn't come back to bite us and she was able to grind it out and get it done. Proud of their resilience and how they kept fighting."

Nicholls saw similar success from its relief pitcher as well as the Lady Demons only major scoring threat came in the bottom of the seventh after a leadoff walk to Laney Roos. Pinch runner Casey Irvin stole second after a fly out and moved to third on a wild pitch representing the winning run.

The heroics however were not to go to anyone in the seventh allowing for the finish that all NSU fans hoped they would see from the player they wanted most.

In just her fourth game back, and second start, since offseason knee surgery Alexis Perry provided the storybook ending final blow on the first pitch she saw in the bottom of the eighth. Her mammoth home run cleared the wall with ease landing in the parking lot across the street from the stadium sending the home faithful, and her exuberant teammates, into a frenzy.

"That girl had been throwing me first-pitch strikes," Perry said. "After that I wasn't getting much else over the plate. I knew that if that first pitch was there, I was going to unload on it.

I talked to Coach Pickett before the at bat and he said I had a little too much arm on the last time up and I needed to get my legs behind it. Our pitchers were throwing and I knew I had to hit something hard for them so I got the first pitch and went for it."

The wins give the Lady Demons their sixth straight, the longest winning streak of the season, and their 11^th win in the last 12 games.

NSU goes for its second straight conference sweep on Saturday at 12 p.m.