COMMERCE, Texas – Northwestern State made it through one and a half of its two scheduled games on Friday before Mother Nature intervened. 
 
The NSU bats were shut down by Commerce's Julia Sanchez who held the Demons to two hits in a 2-0 shutout to start the day. 
 
Neither team was able to top the weather forecast for the second game as a nearly two-hour delay pushed the start of game two back to its originally scheduled 7 p.m. window and ultimately forced the suspension of play with NSU batting in the top of the fourth inning.
 
After falling behind 3-0 through the first three innings, Keely Dubois and Kat Marshall delivered back-to-back doubles to start the fourth scoring their first run of the day on Marshall's two-bagger.
 
The game will resume at 11 a.m. on Saturday, prior to the scheduled series finale originally set for 12 p.m.
 
The Lady Demons had been playing from the start of the day after the first batter of the home half of the first following a leadoff solo home run, one of two extra-base hits from Commerce's Avery Zeigler. She was the first of five straight batters to reach base in the inning for the Lions.
 
Thanks to a perfect throw from Taylor Williams in left to get the runner at the plate on a base hit, the Lions would have have more than one run. Her throw along with a soft liner to short and a strikeout limited the damage to just the one run.
 
The Demons were forced to navigate through lots of traffic in the second inning as well after a leadoff single and a Zeigler double put runners at second and third and sent NSU to the bullpen.
 
Commerce picked up a run on a base hit to center, but reliever Ryleigh Denton did not allow anything more in the frame. Bailie Ragsdale made another highlight reel defensive play by throwing out a runner at home on a delayed steal, leading to the third out of the inning.
 
Commerce had six hits in the first two innings of the game before Denton came in to shut the door allowing just one hit the rest of the game and one other base runner on a sixth-inning walk.
 
Unfortunately for the Demons, the bats were unable to find a solution to Commerce ace Julia Sanchez who turned in her third straight complete game performance with two or fewer hits.
 
In both the third and fourth innings, NSU had the tying run on base but were unable to advance them beyond third as deep fly balls off the bat of Kat Marshall and Ashlyn Walker ended both innings.
 
Of the 21 total outs in the game NSU had 15 come via balls in the air on fly balls or pop ups.
 
Walker hit a leadoff double in the third and Camryn Ford shot a ball to right with two-out in the fourth to account for the Demons only two hits in the game.
 
Between Denton and Sanchez from the third inning and the end of the game, the two teams combined for just three hits and six total base runners.
 
Denton retired nine straight batters before a two-out single in the bottom of the fifth, capping her second longest Southland Conference outing of 4 2/3 shutout innings allowing just two hits with four strikeouts and one walk.
 
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