NATCHITOCHES – The Northwestern State baseball team saw a ninth-inning rally fall short Saturday afternoon in the middle game of its Southland Conference series against Southeastern at Brown-Stroud Field.
Quiet offensively for much of the afternoon, the Demons put the go-ahead run on base before Lion closer Gage Trahan stranded the bases loaded to preserve a 4-2 SLU victory, the Lions' second straight win in the series.
"We didn't swing the bats well at all," sixth-year head coach
Bobby Barbier said. "We hit one ball hard all game, and that was from a guy (
Cole Horton) who had been sitting over there for the past month. He had a good at-bat in the ninth. We have to do a better job earlier in the game of putting pressure on them in multiple innings in order to force mistakes."
Northwestern State (20-22, 8-9) put just five runners on base against Southeastern starter Adam Guth (2-1) in 5 2-3 innings with one of those being a leadoff single from
Jake Haze to start the game.
After Guth walked
Gray Rowlett with one out in the first, the freshman left-hander retired 14 straight Demons before
Cam Sibley's leadoff infield single in the sixth inning led to Northwestern State's first run.
By that time, the Lions (19-24, 9-8) had taken a 2-0 lead on Tristan Welch's third-inning home run and a fifth-inning sacrifice fly by Evan Keller against NSU starter
Johnathan Harmon (5-5).
Harmon turned in his fifth start of at least seven innings this season, working 7 1-3 innings and allowing three runs (two earned) to keep the Demons in striking distance.
Guth and reliever Dalton Aspholm kept that from happening.
Sibley's single to first base, which he beat out with a head-first dive to the bag, sparked the Demons and seemed to rattle Guth slightly.
After Haze had a bunt single erased on an athletic play by catcher Bryce Grizzaffi, Guth hit
Daunte Stuart and walked Rowlett to load the bases with one out.
Guth mishandled
Bo Willis' comebacker to the mound but recovered to nip Willis at first for the second out before Aspholm retired
Jeffrey Elkins on a fly ball to center to escape the threat.
Following an eighth inning in which the teams traded unearned runs, Welch's two-out home run in the ninth gave the Lions a pivotal insurance run before the Demons mounted their final charge in the ninth.
Elkins' infield single against Trahan, Horton's pinch-hit single and a two-out
Cam Sibley walk against Trahan loaded the bases before the Lion closer induced a game-ending fielder's choice to earn his second save of the weekend.
"It was a good fight in the end, but if those good fights start in the first, we win the game," Barbier said.
The series concludes Sunday with at 1 p.m. finale. Right-hander
Drayton Brown (4-4, 3.81) takes the mound for the Demons while SLU has yet to name its starter.
Southeastern 4, Northwestern State 2
SLU 001 010 011 – 4 8 1
NSU 000 001 010 – 2 4 1
W – Adam Guth (2-1). L –
Johnathan Harmon (5-5). S – Gage Trahan (7). HR – SLU, Tristan Welch 2 (8). Highlights: SLU, Welch 3-4, 2 HRs, 2 RBIs.
Records: Southeastern 19-24, 9-8; Northwestern State 20-22, 8-9.
