NATCHITOCHES – Northwestern State's final baseball series of the season against McNeese stands as its Alumni Weekend, which is fitting in some ways for center fielder Reese Lipoma.
 
As former Demon baseball players make their way to the new-look Brown-Stroud Field for the series, which begins at 6:30 p.m. Thursday night and continues with a 6:30 p.m. Friday game and a 2 p.m. Saturday series finale, they will find Lipoma, whose career mirrors many of theirs.
 
All three games will air on ESPN+ with the first two games being sponsored by the Louisiana Lottery. Saturday's series finale will be Senior Day where Northwestern will honor its 15-player senior class.
 
A fifth-year senior from Gonzales, Lipoma will play the final three regular-season home games of his career against McNeese, capping a career that has seen him become a bit of an anomaly. In an age of unprecedented player movement in college athletics, Lipoma has spent his college career in one place.
 
"Me and my family are very blessed that I got the opportunity to come here and grow up," said Lipoma, who has started 103 of a possible 104 games in the past two seasons as the Demon center fielder and leadoff hitter.
 
"I feel like as an 18-year-old who weighed 170 pounds, I was a completely different person. There have been a lot of ups and downs, a lot of failure and a lot of adversity. I've been able to see some success, a light at the end of the tunnel. A lot of emotions go into it. I'm super blessed, super fortunate and thankful for everyone along the way."
 
The weekend series between the Demons (31-18, 17-10) and Cowboys (30-13, 18-9) will have repercussions for next week's bracket play in the Southland Conference Tournament. Northwestern enters the series in a three-way tie for fourth place, one game behind McNeese, knowing it will slot somewhere between the Nos. 3 and 6 seeds next week.
 
The Cowboys are still mathematically alive to host one of the two four-team brackets, but McNeese needs a little help for that to happen. The Cowboys trail conference-leader Southeastern by two games with three to play while UTRGV, which finished its Southland season this past weekend, has locked up one of the host sites.
 
"High-stakes baseball – that's why you call yourself a competitor," second-year head coach Chris Bertrand said. "That's why we want to build the program to where we have expectations and we have goals – lofty goals. That's what we're building. There are elements we can't control, but what we can control is welcoming the challenge of high-stakes baseball games by playing in a manner that says we've learned from the first 50 games of the season."
 
The Demons' three-game sweep of Pepperdine this past weekend, capped a 7-1 road trip that took the Demons to then-No. 4 LSU, Stephen F. Austin and Pepperdine.
 
In many ways, Northwestern's April-into-May surge has mirrored what Lipoma has done.
 
During the Demons' 4-0 week against ULM and Pepperdine, Lipoma batted .611, slugged .778 and had a pair of four-hit, three-RBI games from his customary leadoff spot.
 
"Just staying the course," Lipoma said of himself and the team. "I was thinking about it earlier, when we got swept by Troy (Feb. 21-23) and we got swept by Southeastern (Feb. 28-March 2), I never thought we'd be able to finish top three (in conference) or have a shot like that at the end of the year. We've stayed the course, stuck together. There was a rough patch there, as there is every season. It's part of the game, part of why we play baseball.
 
"We stayed the course, believed in each other, came to work each and every day, working our tails off. It's the way we went about it."
 
As one of the four team captains – along with outfielder Clay Jung, third baseman Rocco Gump and left-handed pitcher Corbin Talley – Lipoma is not only the elder statesman in the Demon locker room, he has emerged as a leader and someone who has been indispensable for Bertrand.
 
Before Bertrand took over the program ahead of the 2024 season, Lipoma had appeared in 39 games with 12 starts. He had 41 career at-bats through two seasons.
 
From the Feb. 16, 2024, season opener against Southern Illinois, Lipoma has been a mainstay atop the lineup and in center field. In 103 games the past two seasons, Lipoma has batted .323 (133-for-412) and moved into the school's career top 10 in runs scored (9^th place, 128). This season, Lipoma's 57 runs scored have him in a three-way tie for 10^th place in school single-season history.
 
His 43 walks are the seventh most in a single season, one behind former teammate Daunte Stuart, who drew 44 walks during Lipoma's redshirt season of 2021.
 
"What an incredible story, from a walk-on to where we are right now," Bertrand said. "From a limited amount of time in the first three years to what he has meant to this program the last two. His leadership, his example, the way he has captained this team, the way he has shown faith and trust in us so we can be able to tell that story. The way he showed faith and trust in us, that's a relationship that will never be broken and one that I can never repay him for all that he poured into Demon baseball. It's going to be a lifelong one of me constantly owing him."
 
The admiration Bertrand has for his center fielder is part of a two-way street with Lipoma holding the second Demon head coach he played under in equally high esteem.
 
"Bert was a huge part of it," Lipoma said of his reason for staying for the 2024 season. "What he's done for me, my career and my family – just the person and the leader he is – that is a huge part for me. I really do love Natchitoches. I love the people here. It really does feel like home. It's three hours from my actual home (Gonzales). My parents can come here easily. There are great parts of this place. It's hard to leave. It really is."