SAN ANTONIO – Northwestern State fought through a bit of offensive frustration in a 3-2 game one loss in 10 innings to get a 9-5 win in game two on Friday's doubleheader against UIW. 
 
UIW 3, NSU 2 (10 innings)
 
That's the way baseball, or softball in this case, go.
 
Former Texas Rangers manager Ron Washington said those words and the Lady Demons felt them in the first game of Friday's doubleheader against UIW.
 
NSU pounded out 11 hits and had several more taken away on hard hit balls that, a foot or two in either direction would have been clean singles or more, and got eight straight shutout innings from their starting pitcher, all to drop the opener 3-2 in extra innings.
 
The Cardinals scored two runs in the bottom of the first inning, getting three hits and four straight base runners all with two outs in the inning. A two-run double off the wall in left served as the big blow to score both runs.
 
The first five UIW hits of the game all came with two outs, getting two more in the second before Maggie Darr was fully able to settle into the game and shut down the Cardinal lineup for eight straight frames.
 
NSU's second major scoring opportunity of the game came in the third inning after two straight one-out singles from Bailie Ragsdale and Taylor Williams. Two of those dreaded "at 'em" balls off the bat of Keely Dubois and Kat Marshall kept the Demons off the scoreboard in the inning.
 
The Demons did break through in the fourth though after Laney Roos reached second on a throwing error and came in to score on an RBI single from Tristin Court. The potential of a big inning though would end abruptly on an inning-ending double play.
 
The second hard out off the bat of Dubois helped stymie another potential crooked number in the fifth after Williams tied the game on a base hit to center that brought in Vivica Hernandez, the pinch runner for Ashlyn Walker who started the inning with a double.
 
A line drive to left was caught and Ragsdale was doubled off at second for the first two outs of the inning. NSU could not come up with the clutch two-out hit it needed that would have given it the lead from that point.
 
"It was pretty frustrating," Makenzie Chaffin said. "We out hit them and they were playing a bit of a shift and we seemed to be hitting it right into it even though we were hitting it square and right on the barrel. We saw that we were doing the right things and just had to know that eventually they are going to fall, and it definitely carried into the second game. "
 
 
Neither team threatened any scoring chances through the next two and a half innings, until the Demons got back-to-back two-out hits in the eighth. A fly out to right ended the inning and the Demons best chance to push the go-ahead run across in extra innings.
 
Darr worked around a leadoff walk to strand the winning run at second in the bottom of the ninth, but a walk and double to start the 10^th set the stage for the squeeze bunt to bring in the game-winner on a do-or-die play.
 
After seeing two runs score in the bottom of the first, Darr tossed eight straight shutout innings for the Demons allowing just four hits during that time.
 
She did so great," Chaffin said of Darr's performance. "You hate to see your pitcher go out and throw like that and take the loss. She threw a heck of a game and gave us a chance to win. We had chances to win through all 10 innings and just couldn't get the timely hit. She can keep doing that for sure."
 
NSU 9, UIW 5
 
After falling behind 2-0 for the second straight time after the first inning, the Lady Demons, who were shutout for the first three innings, cut the lead in half on an RBI double from Chaffin on the first pitch she saw.
 
Her double seemingly reinforced the "keep doing what we're doing" mindset for the Demons at the plate, and it paid off big time over the next two innings.
 
A two-out rally in the fifth gave NSU their first lead of the day starting with a Williams walk and Dubois base hit to left. Kat Marshall evened the game on a second straight hit up the middle and Chaffin added two more run on a base hit to right to give the Demons a 4-2 edge.
 
"We were able to find the holes a couple times," Chaffin said. "We found the holes and got some RBIs so that was awesome. I think everyone's mindset was keep hitting barrel. We did that and got the timely hits in this one."
 
Chaffin was thrown out at second trying to advance on the wide throw to the plate, but going back to the Williams walk, NSU had 10 straight batters reach base between the end of the fifth and the start of the sixth that allowed them to break the game open.
 
The three-run fifth put NSU ahead and the five-run sixth turned into the key inning that secured a Demon victory.
 
Four of the first five batters of the sixth reached base thanks to walks, with Tristin Court sending a hit through the right side during the stretch. Ashlyn Walker and Bailie Ragsdale each earn RBIs on bases loaded walks before a two-run single from Taylor Williams made it 8-2 Demons. Chaffin picked up her fourth RBI of the game on a deep sacrifice fly to left before the Cardinals were finally able to escape the long inning on a groundout to short.
 
Ryleigh Denton threw six innings of shutout work after entering in relief in the first inning before her only hiccup of the game in the sixth. A two-out single brought in one run and an error extended the inning for two more to come across before she got a soft grounder to third with the bases loaded to get out of the inning.
 
"They showed a lot of heart and resiliency after falling behind again in that second game like we did the first," head coach Donald Pickett said. "Proud of them for not trying to do too much in the lineup and Ryleigh coming in and giving us a chance to win and Bronte (Rhoden) shutting the door at the end."
 
With runners on first and second in the bottom of the seventh, Rhoden came in for her third save of the season getting a ground ball to second and a strikeout to end the game.
 
"In the first game we hit a lot of at 'em balls when we had those runners on base," Pickett said. "We finally found the holes in the second game and looked at the plate like an experienced team that had been there before and didn't panic. We've got a chance to win the series after a marathon of a day so hopefully we come out as the aggressor early and keep the pressure on them."