NATCHITOCHES – A taxing week for Northwestern State wraps up this weekend when it returns home for a three-game Southland Conference series with Lamar.
 
The third three-game set over the past week begins with a doubleheader at 4 p.m. on Friday and concludes with a single Saturday affair starting at 12 p.m.
 
The matchup with the Cardinals (22-19, 10-8), led by former NSU assistant coach Amy Hooks (2013-18) and former all-conference players Tara McKenney (2011-14) and Taylor Williams (2021-24), also serves as Alumni Weekend for NSU softball where former Demons and their families can purchase $5 tickets on both days that grants them access to the Outfield Club behind the left field wall.
 
The former players will also have a chance to see and tour the new facility upgrades at the Demon Diamond as well as have the chance to meet the new coaching staff and the 2025 edition of the Demons.
 
Alumni tickets are available by visiting www.nsudemons.com/SoftballAlumniWeekend. General admission tickets are available at nsutickets.com.
 
"I'm excited to have all the former players her this weekend," first-year head coach Jenny Fuller said. "I've gotten to meet some of them since we came her but excited to have even more here and have them see the new field and meet our girls and enjoy what it is to be a Demon.
 
"NSU softball has such a rich history of softball and has had a ton of success. So we're happy to celebrate that this weekend as we keep building and growing with this group and having them see and hear from those players that championships can be won here."
 
Members of the 2015 Southland regular season championship team will be on hand to throw out the first pitch on Friday evening.
 
The Demons (5-36, 2-16) carry some momentum into the weekend as well after picking up a 4-3 win on Wednesday in the midweek series finale at UIW. They outscored the Cardinals, who currently sit in third in the conference standings, 11-6 over the final 13 innings of the weekend thanks to a pair of outstanding pitching performances and a slight shift in the lineup.
 
Fuller moved centerfielder Sophia Livers down in the order from her usual spot in the leadoff position for the series. The move paid off as Livers had hits in all three games, three of them going for extra bases, scored two runs and drove in three others. All coming after an 0-for-8 weekend against Stephen F. Austin.
 
"Coach told me before series that she was going to move me down in the lineup a little bit and that just helped me relax a little bit," Livers said. "That's going to happen, you know. Hitters go through ups and downs. So going into the box I was just thinking see ball, hit ball and simplifying things as much as a I can."
 
Livers gave the Demons the first of a pair of insurance runs with her second double of the game in the seventh inning on Wednesday. She also tracked down four of the 16 fly balls hit in the game behind starter Brooklynn Stohler who threw her league-leading ninth complete game of the year.
 
NSU's starting centerfielder has 93 putouts on the season, 40 of them in conference play, the second most on the team behind only Brynn Daniel who has played 25 games at first base, a team's typical putout leader each year along with the catcher. She is just seven catches away from being the first outfielder with 100 putouts in the season since Sidney Salmans in 2018.
 
"We know she is going to produce a lot of fly balls when she is out there," Livers said. "So it's making sure that we are tracking the ball in our gloves and securing it. We work on it and do pop ups in practice every day for that reason. As an outfielder you know balls are going to get hit in the air and in the gap and you have to be willing to go catch it."
 
The Demons have had 20 games this year with 10 or more fly ball outs, 17 of those games were Stohler starts.
 
Lamar enters the weekend with 346 fly outs this year, the second most in the conference behind McNeese's 351.
 
In their back-to-back losses during the midweek series against Southeastern, Lamar hit into 25 fly outs during those games as they dropped two straight one-run affairs to the league-leading Lions.
 
In low-scoring series, with both teams only scratching across eight runs each, the Lions scored three runs in the top of the seventh of the finale. A Maria Detillier home run in the inning gave the Lions the lead, breaking the Cardinal hearts just like the two-run home she hit in seventh against the Demons on March 21 in Natchitoches broke theirs.
 
A balanced team, the Cardinals have four players that have played in all 41 of their games thus far that are batting over .300 on the season. Designated player Veronica Harrison paces that group with a .339 average and leads the team with five home runs and 28 RBI.
 
Mallory Pitre is the most recent SLC Pitcher of the Week winner after winning both games of the doubleheader against Texas A&M-Corpus Christi this past weekend, allowing just one run on five hits with 10 Ks.
 
She allowed five runs, three of them earned, in 10.0 innings of work against Southeastern during the midweek series and has thrown a complete game in each of the past three conference series. 
 
"Coach talks a lot about being at our best when our best is needed and I think that's something we need to stick with and carry through this series," Livers said about facing Lamar. "I really would like to see us take a win or two on Friday so we're not relying on that game three to get a win. If we go out there and play a full 14 innings top to bottom, give it our all and leave it all on the field we know that we did whatever we could no matter what happens."