MOBILE, Alabama – Cal Carver put the Northwestern State baseball team in position to start their 2023 season off on the right foot on the first day of the South Alabama Jaguar Classic.
 
The host team, however, gave the Demons a bit of a flashback, rallying late to score a 3-2 win Friday night at Eddie Stanky Field.
 
"I thought Cal was fantastic," seventh-year head coach Bobby Barbier said. "All our guys competed really well in the strike zone. We made a couple of mistakes that were costly. Both them and us executed pitches very well. It was a good, competitive game. We were just a little short in a couple of spots."
 
South Alabama (1-0) followed a similar script to the one it authored twice in a three-game sweep of the Demons in Natchitoches in 2021 – trail early, score late.
 
While Carver and Jaguar right-hander Jeremy Lee locked up in a pitchers' duel through the first five innings, the Demons (0-1) were the ones who broke through first thanks in part to a pair of freshmen who made their collegiate debuts.
 
Shortstop Caleb Castle started the rally with a leadoff single, his first career hit and the first Demon hit against Lee, who allowed two hits and two unearned runs in 5 2-3 innings while striking out eight.
 
Lee did not walk a batter, but he did hit Bailyn Sorensen to load the bases with one out before getting a called third strike on Bo Willis. Freshman Michael Dattalo followed with an infield single to shortstop that Trey Lewis threw away, allowing a second run to score.
 
It was Lewis' second error of the inning and fourth of the game, but it was the only one the Demons could convert.
 
"Both freshmen looked comfortable," Barbier said. "Caleb on defense made some really nice plays. It was good to see both of them competing really hard."
 
Lee's eight strikeouts set the tone as he and relievers Matthew DeLano, Danny Diaz and Grant Wood combined to strike out 14 Demons in the two-hitter. DeLano (1-0) earned the win with 1 1-3 innings of shutout relief while Wood notched the save with a perfect ninth inning.
 
Carver matched Lee through five innings, scattering two hits and a walk while striking out six hitters. Carver's strikeouts pushed his career total to 181, moving him into a tie with Chris Brown for ninth on NSU's all-time list.
 
Carver retired the first 10 Jaguars he faced before Mitchell Heer doubled with one out in the fourth before Carver recovered to strike out Robbie Petracci to strand Heer at third. An inning later, Carver took advantage of Tyler Borges' aggressiveness, throwing him out at third after Borges tried to take an extra base on Joseph Sullivan's infield single.
 
The Jaguars cut the lead in half in the sixth on a run-scoring wild pitch and tied it on another in the seventh before Will Turner capped a string of three straight two-out hits against Dawson Flowers (0-1) with a two-out RBI single up the middle to give the Jaguars the only lead they needed.
 
The Demons return to action at 11 a.m. Saturday when they face UAB in the middle game of their stay in the Jaguar Classic.