NATCHITOCHES – As the Southland Conference season winds down, the Northwestern State baseball team will be focused on what it can control – not what the other eight teams in the league are doing.
 
The opponent for the Demons' sixth conference series – its first at home in three weeks – should help Northwestern State keep its eyes affixed on the series with the Huskies, which begins at 6:30 p.m. Friday at Brown-Stroud Field. The series also includes day games Saturday (2 p.m.) and Sunday (1 p.m.). All three games will air on ESPN+.
 
Both Northwestern State (15-26) and HCU (15-25) enter the weekend with identical 6-9 Southland Conference records, placing them in a tie for sixth place in the conference standings. The top eight teams in the standings advance to the conference tournament in Hammond from May 22-25.
 
"It's all within our own hands," first-year head coach Chris Bertrand said. "We are in control. We are in the driver's seat of it. What we do with that opportunity is completely up to us. It's worth having a conversation and talking about those points, but at the end of the day, those are feelings and circumstances. Neither one of those two things have anything to do with winning baseball games. We have to play our best brand of baseball. We need to clean up the execution. We need to recognize winning moments in the baseball game and go out and grab those moments and be better in those moments.
 
"Yes, we talk about them, but feelings and circumstances don't matter. Scoreboard watching does not matter. For the next nine conference games, they need to be days of improvement and learning lessons of winning. It's worth having that conversation and you want to be in a position of comfort that last weekend (against Stephen F. Austin from May 16-18), but the good news is it's completely up to us."
 
Both teams bounced back from conference sweeps this past weekend with midweek wins.
 
The Huskies grabbed an 8-3 home win against Stephen F. Austin on Tuesday before hanging for a 10-9 victory against No. 17 UL Lafayette on Wednesday in Lafayette.
 
Northwestern State recovered from its three-game sweep at UIW with a 16-8 win against Grambling on Tuesday night in which the Demons set a season high in runs, scoring the most it had since a 16-5 win in last season's series finale against HCU in Sugar Land, Texas.
 
The double-digit scoring performance came after the Demons stranded a combined 32 runners on base in the series at UIW.
 
"We need to keep stacking bricks and building the way we are," said second baseman Samuel Stephenson, who had NSU's second inside-the-park home run in 10 days in the Demons' win Tuesday. "After a tough weekend, it was a good step forward. We need to take this momentum and keep going and see what we can do."
 
Much like Northwestern State did in the first half of Southland play, the Huskies have enjoyed life on the road in league play.
 
HCU has scored road series wins at Southeastern and Texas A&M-Corpus Christi. Following this weekend's series, the Huskies step out of conference next weekend before wrapping up the season with a road trip to McNeese (May 10-12) and a home series against UIW (May 16-18).
 
"You're looking at a ballclub that is trying to do a lot of things similar to what we are trying to do in our journey," Bertrand said. "They're a ballclub that can go anywhere, any venue, on any given day and beat anyone. We feel the same way about our ballclub. The games mean something whether it be in the standings or positioning, the jockeying you're going to have to do to finish the season. They are a much, much improved team. We have to be ready to play. We have to be well prepared -- and we will be. We control our own destiny through our next nine conference games."
 
Series Probables
Friday: HCU RHP Parker Edwards (4-4, 4.23) at Northwestern State RHP Chase Prestwich (3-4, 7.11)
Saturday: HCU RHP Rye Gunter (2-0, 5.40) at Northwestern State TBA
Sunday: HCU RHP Jackson Hamilton (1-1, 9.37) at Northwestern State RHP Dawson Flowers (1-3, 6.32)