RUSTON – Northwestern State plays the first half its annual home-and-home with Louisiana Tech looking for more fine-tuning before its next conference series.
 
The Demons (11-15, 0-3) were swept this past weekend in its first three conference games of the season seeing a handful of miscues in the field, on the basepaths and at the plate cost them runs on both sides.
 
When they take on a quality midweek opponent in Louisiana Tech (16-4, 3-0) at 6 p.m. on ESPN+ the little things will be take on just as big an importance as they do on conference weekends.
 
NSU had errors in each of its three losses this past week against Nicholls and had seemingly innocent misplays at the time that led to Colonel runs. A small bobble on a play leading to an extra base, a ball of the glove leading to an extra base, a hit batter leading to an extra base at some point coming back to cost the Demons. Against quality opponents the margins are thin.
 
But even through the handful of missteps the Demons were within two runs of the Colonels most of the weekend thanks to the quality of the NSU pitching staff and the vast majority of plays that were made.
 
A four-run seventh turned a one-run game into a deceiving loss, and one swing in the fifth of the second game stretched a two-run game into a five-run lead. Kenzie Seely lost a hard-fought pitcher's duel in the final where the Demons got the tying run to the plate on a handful of instances.
 
After an uncharacteristic game one performances allowing nine runs, seven of them earned, in her first start of the weekend, Seely responded to allow just two runs on three hits in the finale, giving the NSU bats its best chance to diagnose Nicholls pitcher Audrey McNeill, who on Monday was name Southland Pitcher of the Week for her performance against the Demons.
 
After the tough weekend, NSU faces a hot Bulldog team that has won four straight games and seven of their last eight overall and one of the best pitching staffs in the country.
 
Tech has a team ERA of 1.90 on the season, ranking them in the top 20 in the country, and held their opponents to two or fewer runs in eight of the past nine games. They allowed just one run in each of the final two games of a three-game sweep of Sam Houston this past weekend.
 
Tech won both games of the home-and-home series this past season as the teams have alternated season sweeps of the two-game series each of the past three years.