GRAMBLING – Twenty games into the 2025 season, the Northwestern State baseball team will experience a first as a group.
 
After playing its first four midweek games at home, the Demons finally hit the road for a weekday game, traveling to state rival Grambling for a 6 p.m. Tuesday matchup at Wilbert Ellis Field at R.W.E. Jones Stadium.
 
Streaming audio of the game can be heard on www.NSUDemons.com and through the Northwestern State Athletics mobile app, which can be downloaded free for Apple and Android devices.


"The (Feb. 19) cancelation against ULM put us in this situation, because that was supposed to be the first road one of the year," second-year head coach Chris Bertrand said. "Every new baseball brings new things and new opportunities. I can't remember it being this long (before the first road midweek game), but we can also say that no one ever remembers starting conference play in Week 3.
 
"Schedule navigation is something that, in today's world, you're going to have some unique experiences every single year. You're going to have some road trips that bring about different sets of circumstances."
 
Northwestern (11-8) picked up an 11-1 win against the Tigers (7-11) a week ago in Natchitoches in the first meeting between the teams.
 
This time, the Demons return the trip to Lincoln Parish and will hit the middle game of a seven-game road trip. After playing their first 16 games of the year on turf infields, all seven games of the road trip take place at stadiums that are natural surfaces.
 
"The games against (Texas A&M-) Corpus (Christi) hopefully prepared us for tomorrow night in the way we have to attack the baseball from a defensive standpoint," Bertrand said. "We enjoy that. We have a baseball team and a family that welcomes challenges. We talk consistently answering the battle at every turn. When you talk about some of these little nuances, our team sees that as a great then and as a welcome challenge."
 
The Demons have won six of the past seven games, including a perfect 5-0 homestand that concluded with the win against Grambling.
 
Similarly, the Tigers are coming in hot, having swept Alabama A&M in a three-game series to open Southwestern Athletic Conference play.
 
Northwestern will send sophomore right-hander Kevin Robinson (3-0, 4.91) to the mound for his second start against the Tigers in a week. The Tigers will counter with either Nick Robinson (0-2, 18.47) or Taylor Dooley (0-0, 17.47).
 
Much like his team as a whole, Kevin Robinson has been at his best recently. A Shreveport product, Robinson has won all three of his starts this season.
 
He carries an eight-inning scoreless streak into Tuesday's matchup at the spot where Robinson earned his first career win April 2, 2024.
 
"What you hope to do in the course of any season, you want the games you play in the beginning of the season to be games in which you're pressing buttons and figuring out your personnel," Bertrand said. "You're carving our roles and defining roles while figuring out how best to put the baseball team in positions to be successful and ultimately give yourself a chance to win ball games.
 
"Kevin and so many other people performing well and utilizing their skill sets and their styles are allowing us to settle into a rhythm. Our style of baseball is to play a lot of people and utilize multiple facets of the roster and that's going to continue. With that comes the effort to find a tempo and rhythm. Close to 20 games in, I feel like we're finding a rhythm and a tempo from a personnel standpoint, and Kevin and the rest of the ball club are to be commended in the way they have been receptive to that and have performed in those areas."