BEAUMONT, Texas – The Northwestern State baseball team penned a perfect way to end its last homestand before beginning its longest road stretch of the season.
 
As the Demons start an eight-game road trip Wednesday night at Lamar, they will do so with momentum on their side following a three-game sweep of Texas A&M-Corpus Christi that ended with a 10^th-inning, walk-off home run from Bryce Holmes on Sunday afternoon.
 
"It's important to have that momentum going into something that, on the front end, looks pretty daunting, playing so many games on the road at once," sixth-year head coach Bobby Barbier said. "At this point in the season, since we've already been on the road, we understand what it's about. We understand what it takes to win on the road against good teams. I'm not as worried about being on the road as much as I'm worried about practice (Tuesday) and how that's going to look and us playing good baseball today, tomorrow, Thursday and every day we have the opportunity to go out there and play."
 
Northwestern State (15-12) carries a season-long, five-game win streak into the 6 p.m. matchup with the Cardinals, who carry a 16-12 record into their Tuesday-night matchup with Texas Southern. Free streaming audio of the game will be available on www.NSUDemons.com and through the Northwestern State Athletics mobile app, which can be downloaded free for Apple and Android devices.
 
Wednesday's game completes the two-game, home-and-home series between the former Southland Conference rivals. Northwestern State won the first matchup, 21-7, at Brown-Stroud Field on March 15, capping a four-game win streak that stood as the longest for the Demons this season until their current five-game run.
 
"We'll have to play well to win," Barbier said. "They were leading the WAC going into the weekend. The game here was an anomaly – we played really well, but 20-run games don't come around very often. We're going to have to play really well to win."
 
The Demons' March victory against Lamar was early in a portion of the season where NSU has gone 12-3 in hits past 15 games.
 
That run of success came after the Demons endured an eight-game losing streak in late February and early March.
 
"Baseball's a crazy game," Barbier said. "Earlier in that losing stretch we had, it seemed like the ball was always two feet away from us. We didn't make that great play. We were right there, and didn't have a chance to make it or a call didn't go our way. Last weekend, it felt like we got some of those breaks. When you get them, you get that momentum and confidence, and you make that great play like Larson (Fontenot) and Sib (Cam Sibley) did. You get that big hit like Bryce did. That's all part of maturing as a team and fighting through when it's tough.
 
"It's going to be tough again at some point this year. You fight through it, you stay the course, all the things we say as coaches, and it will turn for you. That's the reward they got. We have to keep working. That's what we talked about at the time. We had to keep working when we lost however many in a row. Now that we've won however many in a row, we still have to keep working."
 
Northwestern State will start right-hander Andrew Cossio (1-0, 10.12), giving the junior his first career start in what will be a game where Barbier will get several pitchers live reps ahead of this weekend's Southland Conference series at Incarnate Word.