NATCHITOCHES – Northwestern State took advantage of some strong hits and some weak defense to pick up an 8-3 win against Grambling on Tuesday night.
In their final midweek game of the season the Demons (18-30) needed just three batters to take a 2-0 lead on a
Tristin Court home run. A vintage Little League home run gave them the lead back in the third and a four-run fourth helped secure their fourth straight home win.
We've got some resilient players on this team," head coach
Lacy Prejean said. "We set the tone in the bottom of the first and responded after they had the big swing there in the third and I was really proud of them for doing that."
A leadoff single from
Taylor Williams started the 10-hit game for the Demons as they jumped ahead six pitches later on
Tristin Court's fourth home run of the season, a shot over the center field wall.
Ashlyn Walker singled through the left side for the third hit of the inning, advancing to second on an error by the left fielder. The miscue allowed Walker to score with ease on a lined shot to the left field wall from
Cameron Curtis, her seventh doubles of the year.
"We said before the game we wanted to be patient and see good pitches," Williams, who had two hits and reached base in all three of her plate appearances of the game, said. "Just make sure we do what we need to do to score a lot of run. I took my first at-bat deep in the count and just had that feeling that I was going to hit and get on base, score this inning and start this thing off with a bang."
Three straight hits, the final of which just cleared the left field wall for a home run, tied the game for the Tigers.
NSU jumped right back ahead in the bottom of the inning with a home run of sorts of its own from Walker. Her second base hit to left of the game was misplayed allowing her to reach second, and on the throw trying to get her at third, skipped away for the second error of the play sending Walker to the plate.
"We've gone over that since the very beginning," Prejean said. "I want to be aggressive on the bases. Take the extra base and anticipate an error. That's part of our philosophy. Be aggressive and make them make mistakes."
Williams and
Bailie Ragsdale both reached base in the bottom of the fourth as the Demons against forced the issue on the base paths to push across multiple runs.
A sinking line drive off the bat of
Laney Roos got by the diving center fielder allowing both runners to score and give Roos her first triple of the season. She scored on a ground ball to short from Walker, who reached base safely for the third time in the game courtesy of throwing error.
A second error in the inning allowed Walker to score her third run of the game, coming around from second on a ground ball to the second baseman. Walker scored two times in the game on plays where Grambling made errors.
The five-run lead was more than enough for
Maggie Darr and
Kenzie Seely to finish off the final four innings of the game, supporting the quality outing from
Ryleigh Denton who made her third start of the season.
Darr retired all nine batters she faced in order, adding three strikeouts to her pitching line, while Seely struck out a pair of batters in the seventh inning before getting a ground ball to end the game.
Williams, Ragsdale and Walker all had two hits in the game with Williams and Walker scoring five of the eight total runs on the night for NSU. Court and Roos each had a pair of RBI on extra base hits in the game.
