NATCHITOCHES – Second-year head coach Jenny Fuller expected a heavyweight fight for her Northwestern State squad with perennial conference power McNeese in town – she got just that on Friday.
 
In a game that saw each team throw haymaker after haymaker for seven innings, it was the Demons (13-14, 3-1) that landed the knockout blow in the bottom of the seventh for a 7-6 walk-off win against McNeese (19-8, 3-1).
 
With the bases loaded and one out, after a wild pitch allowed Riley Schwisow to score the tying run, Sister Arnold flared a ball just beyond the reach of Cowgirl first baseman Corine Poncho bringing in the winning run.
 
"After they walked the two girls in front of me to load the bases I knew that I was going to see some good pitches," Arnold said. "I didn't want to chase early in the count and I got behind 1-2 so with two strikes I said if I think it's going to be a strike I'm going to try and hit it as far as I can. Was really just hoping to hit a fly ball so we could tag and score."
 
Arnold's hit gave the Demons their second walk-off win of the season. Brynn Daniel, who scored the winning run on Friday, secured a seven-run comeback win against Georgia State exactly one month ago for the first.
 
"Sister was ready for that moment and we've been waiting to see that kind of stuff from her. I'm really proud of her for that," Fuller said. "Going into this game we talked about how it would be a fight and they (McNeese) have really good hitters and pitchers and that we would have to play well. We had some setbacks here and there, but we kept fighting back and did what we'd talked about all week."
 
While Arnold's flare single was the biggest swing of the night for the Demons, the second biggest came all the way back in the first inning, setting a precedent for how the game played out the rest of the night.
 
JT Smith launched her second no-doubt home run down the right field line for NSU's first leadoff home run since Micayla Sorosiak in 2016, coincidentally enough also against McNeese. It tied the game after the Cowgirls took the lead on two rare NSU errors that led to an unearned run in the top of the inning.
 
"That's what big players do. They come through in big moments." Fuller said. "She got the momentum going for us for the whole game. It said that if they punch first, we can punch back and we kept fighting and clawing all the way until the very end."
 
NSU kept swinging in the second adding two runs on sacrifice flies from both Smith and Arnold, after an error, walk and Peyton Young reaching on a dropped third strike loaded the bases.
 
The Cowgirls biggest body blows came in the fourth when Maddie Taylor launched a two-run home fourth giving her team a 4-3 lead. They extended that lead by one a solo home run from Nyjah Fontenot in the fifth.
 
But it was once again Smith that provided the counter punch in the bottom half of the frame.
 
A ringing triple down the right field line immediately put her in scoring position, this time four pitches into the bottom of the inning. Mckenna Rinewalt brought her in on the Demons' third sacrifice fly of the game pulling the Demons back within a run.
 
"We definitely gelled tonight and fed off of each other," Arnold said. "If someone made a mistake or messed up we were able to pick them up and come through for our teammates. That's something that's really big and has to be done in softball.
 
Starting pitcher Mattison Buster, who threw her conference-leading ninth complete game of the season, gave up six runs and seven hits on the night, but when the moment called for her best, she delivered.
 
Buster produced a 1-2-3 inning in the top of the sixth to get the Demon bats back to the plate, where they landed another devastating counter punch to the Cowgirls.
 
"What Buster does so well is that she is so strong mentally that she is capable of getting those big outs when we need them and keeping the game within reach," Fuller said. "To hold McNeese to six runs, that was enough for us tonight and the hitters did the rest."
 
With two outs in the bottom of the sixth, the patient Demon hitters did what they have done well all season – earn free passes to first. Peyton Young was hit by a pitch, the 29^th hit batter of the season for NSU, which was followed by a five-pitch walk to the eventual hero Arnold. Britt Bourgoyne reached on an infield single to load the bases for the hottest bat in the lineup JT Smith.
 
The 30^th hit batter of the season for NSU, and Smith's 11^th time getting plunked, already tied for seventh most in a single season in Demon history, brought in the tying run. NSU was unable to bring across the go-ahead run after a strikeout, but the responses at the plate were not done coming for NSU.
 
After the Cowgirls regained the lead in the top of the seventh on a Fontenot double, Buster struck out the next two batters to strand the insurance run at third.
 
Back-to-back singles from Makynlie Jones and Brynn Daniel, followed by a sacrifice bunt from Aly Delafield, put the winning run at second with one out for NSU in the bottom of the inning, setting up the game-winning sequence to follow.
 
The win is the first for NSU against McNeese since a 7-6 victory in Lake Charles in 2023.
 
The series resumes on Saturday with a doubleheader scheduled to being at 1 p.m. both games will air on ESPN+.