NATCHITOCHES – Northwestern State has suffered its fair share of heart break in one run games this season.
In the latest edition those razor-thin affairs Tuesday night, a pair of freshmen doled out their own bit of heart break as the Demons picked up a walk-off 2-1 win against Texas Southern.
Tied at one and down to their final out before a potential fourth extra-inning game this year, freshman
Aly Delafield put herself in scoring position with one swing on a pinch-hit triple over the head of the right fielder.
"Aly hits those kinds of pitchers really well," first-year head coach
Lacy Prejean said who sent Delafield to the plate in the pressure situation. "With two outs there we needed an extra base hit so was thinking maybe we'd get a double or a home run. She hits the ball hard and I rolled the dice calling her over to third."
With the winning run 60 feet away it was another freshman, shot stop
Mia Liscano, that stood in the box with an even greater weight of pressure.
"As soon as she got that hit and coach kept rounding her and sending her to third I knew we were in it, I got it," Liscano said. "Everybody in the dugout was hyped. I was hyped at the plate but I had to calm myself down real quick. It was a big hit that we needed."
After seeing a couple of pitches from Texas Southern reliever Maren Berger, Liscano pulled the ball through the hole on the right side for her second game-winning hit and first walk-off hit as a Demon.
"I was thinking to myself if you're too amped up you're going to swing at trash," Liscano said. "I got in there and wanted to take a look or two and don't get too amped up. I knew I needed to get her home, so I wanted to try and pull the ball. She is a drop-ball pitcher, so I needed to get something on the ground.
"When it went through, I was just thinking just run Aly run. When I turned around first and saw my teammates come at me was an amazing feeling."
The two-out rally put a cherry on top of the latest quality pitching performance from
Kenzie Seely this year who picked up the win in her ninth complete game of the season.
Seely struck out eight batters in the game, her second highest single-game total this season, with three instances of back-to-back strikeouts to end innings in the game. Her only blemish came on a one-out solo home run in the top of the second.
She allowed just one hit over the final five innings and none over the final four innings.
"I want them to believe how close we are and how close we were to winning those games," Prejean said of the results in one-run games this season. "I wanted Kenzie to dominate today. To come in and dominate and not have to throw 20 pitches an inning. Other than a couple pitches she threw a really clean game and we played great defense behind her."
NSU had eight hits in the game, three of them coming from
Tristin Court who continues her torrid play at the plate, upping her average to a team-best .374 after her 3-for-3 day at the dish. The of NSU's hits came from the bottom four players in the lineup.
