NATCHITOCHES – Northwestern State made a loud statement to the rest of the Southland Conference on Saturday, grinding out a series win against perennial power McNees in dramatic fashion at the Demon Diamond.
 
After a tight 5-2 loss in the first game of the day, the Demons (14-15, 4-2), behind near perfection from starting pitcher Mattison Buster, got a 10^th-inning walk-off winner from freshman Mckenna Rinewalt for a 1-0 win against the Cowgirls (20-9, 4-2).
 
It is NSU's first series win over McNeese since 2015, first in Natchitoches since 2011 and just the fifth conference series loss to any team for the Cowgirls since 2021.
 
"It shows that we can compete at a high level in this conference and we brought in the players to do that," head coach Jenny Fuller said about the series win. "We're only trending up from here."
 
McNeese jumped out to an early lead in the first game of the day on a solo home run from the two-hole batter Alexis Dibbley in the top of the first. Two straight singles to open the third led to two more runs and a 3-0 Cowgirl lead after three innings of play.
 
Throughout the entirety of the Saturday opener, Demon pitchers Brooklynn Stohler and Grace Birk worked into and out of trouble to keep the vaunted McNeese offense from breaking the game open.
 
Stohler and Birk combined to strand 13 runners in the game as McNeese put at least two runners on base in every inning.
 
The freshman Birk escaped a bases-loaded, one-out situation in the fifth to keep the three-run deficit intact as the Demon bats continued to refine their swings against McNeese starter Maddie Taylor.
 
NSU was not able to match McNeese's traffic through much of the game, that is until the fifth when for the first time in the game consecutive batters reached base. JT Smith drew her second walk of the game with two out and subsequently jogged around the bases on Rinewalt's second home run of the season, pulling the Demons back within a run at 3-2.
 
The Cowgirls' stud leadoff bat, Nyjah Fontenot, answered with a long ball of her own to open the sixth and a leadoff double in the seventh led to an unearned run that made it a 5-2 game and final.
 
After 13 combined runs in the series opener on Friday and seven in game two, the bats for both teams were put on ice for the finale in an epic pitcher's duel.
 
After tossing more than 100 pitches in a complete game win on Friday night, Buster followed with one of the most dominant outings of her career on Saturday to outduel McNeese's Kynlei Chapman and Brookelyn Taylor.
 
Buster retired the first 17 batters she faced in a row to start the game before a harmless two-out single in the sixth, that was immediately erased as the runner left first base early on an attempted steal of second.
 
She faced one batter over the minimum in the game, surrendering a two-out walk, her only one of the game, in the seventh, and retired the final 10 batters of the game in a row to earn her 12^th win of the season.
 
"She was incredible all weekend," Fuller said. "She has kept us in ball games and is just so mentally tough. Nothing fazes her and I couldn't be more proud of her for what she just did for this program."
 
Buster held McNeese to their fewest hits in a conference game since 2021 and became the first Southland pitcher to win two games against the Cowgirls in the same series since Sam Houston's Regan Dunn, also in 2021.
 
"I honestly wasn't at my best yesterday," Buster said. "I gave up quite a few runs but today the focus was throw hard, hit my spots and let my defense work and they absolutely worked their tails off today. I'm so proud of them. 
 
"We talked about getting the leadoff batter out every single inning. That's where I found myself getting into trouble when I wasn't able to do that. So I was pounding the leadoff batters, hitting my spots and trusting the defense."
 
McNeese leadoff hitters went 3-for-7 (.429) against Buster on Friday and 0-for-10 on Saturday. She threw 17.0 innings against McNeese allowing five earned runs and holding them to a .140 batting average in two complete game performances.
 
While not quite as dominant as Buster's performance, the Cowgirl combo of Chapman and Taylor held the Demons hitless for seven innings before Smith slashed a single to right with one out in the eighth. 
 
Her hit marked the first of three straight chances for the Demons with the winning run on base in extra innings. Smith was stranded at first after her hit, and a four-pitch leadoff walk to Makynlie Jones was left standing at second in the ninth.
 
 A leadoff walk in the 10^th however, led to the second walk-off in three games for the Demons.
 
Friday's hero Sister Arnold reached on a five-pitch free pass to start the inning. A Britt Bourgoyne sacrifice bunt and McNeese throwing error put runners at the corners with no outs and the top of the lineup at the plate.
 
Smith was unintentionally intentionally walked to load the bases and create a force at every base, putting the game in the hands of the freshman Rinewalt. After her 200-foot hit in game one, she found the perfect spot on a 40-foot hit in extras of game two.
 
"We had no outs luckily because the hitters in front of me worked the whole inning," Rinewalt said. "So I was just saying to myself hit something on the ground or hit something deep and luckily I was able to hit something on the ground and run it out. 
 
"It was awesome. I knew we had just won and believed the whole time that we were going to win. So for it to finally come true felt really good."
 
The win gives NSU its first winning mark through the first two conference series of the year since starting 5-1 in 2022. It marked the second time this season the Demons won a game with two or fewer hits.
 
"I think we're a gritty, blue collar team," Fuller said. "At the end of the day it takes what it takes to win games. It doesn't matter how you win. If that's zero hits, one hit, whatever that is we'll take a win. It just sets us up to help us believe that we can beat anyone we play."