BEAUMONT, Texas – Both the Northwestern State baseball team and Stephen F. Austin had their offensive opportunities in Friday night's winner's bracket Southland Conference Tournament matchup.
The Lumberjacks were able to do more with theirs – especially in a momentum-shifting fourth inning – as seventh-seeded SFA edged the sixth-seeded Demons, 6-4, at Vincent-Beck Stadium, securing a spot in the bracket finals.
The Demons will play second-seeded Lamar, the bracket host, at 1 p.m. Saturday in an elimination game. The winner of that game will have to defeat SFA twice, starting with a 6 p.m. Saturday matchup. The 1 p.m. game will air on ESPN+ with radio coverage on 100.7 FM KZBL and through the Northwestern State Athletics mobile app, which can be downloaded free for Apple and Android devices. Should Northwestern advance to the bracket championship game, the coverage will remain the same.
"The game in its totality hinged upon the idea that, in the moments that were critical moments of scoring runs or preventing runs, they were better than us," third-year head coach
Chris Bertrand said. "We had opportunities to get off the field with two outs. Four of their first five runs came with two outs, and eight of their 13 hits came with two strikes. We had opportunities to get ourselves off of the field, and we just couldn't seem to manage to get it done in those two innings right there."
Northwestern (26-25) found itself trailing for the first time in the tournament after Ethan Pena lined a two-out, solo home run off of starter
Kevin Robinson (0-4) in the second innings.
An inning later, the Demons mounted their best offensive inning as Northwestern touched up SFA right-hander Gabe LeBlanc for four runs in the bottom of the third. The biggest swing came from
Joe Siervo, whose two-run home run to left field gave Northwestern a 4-1 lead.
The Demons, however, were unable to extend the lead or to enjoy it as SFA (29-25) answered with four runs of its own in the fourth.
The Lumberjacks tallied six singles in the inning – three with two outs, including a game-tying, two-run single from Julian Swift and a go-ahead knock from Mark Henning.
Those hits – and Henning's RBI single in the sixth – were part of a 5-for-11 night for SFA with runners in scoring position.
Northwestern, meanwhile, finished the night 1-for-12 with runners in scoring position as each team stranded 10 runners.
The Demons' struggles to produce results in the clutch were evident in the fifth inning when a Siervo walk and a JT Simonelli single put runners on the corners with one out, but SFA left-hander Elian Balmaceda (3-1) wiggled out of the jam unscathed.
Balmaceda loaded the bases with two outs before
Zach White's deep drive to left field died at the warning track.
Junior right-hander
Caleb Muffoletto fired three shutout innings of relief with a pair of strikeouts to keep the Demons close in the final three innings.
Thomas Marsala III twice doubled in the final four innings – including a leadoff two-bagger in the ninth – but the Demons could not collect the pivotal hit.
"I'm happy with the way our guys competed, because at the end of the day, all three guys who took the mound were extremely competitive," Bertrand said. "We posted a zero in the error column, and we created some traffic to put runners in scoring position. We just (Saturday) need to learn that, in the moments that are able to flip a scoreboard or flip a score, we've got to be able to get off the field or we have to be able to stay on the field offensively and try to cash in a little bit."
Stephen F. Austin 6, Northwestern State 4
SFA 010 401 000 – 6 13 2
NSU 004 000 000 – 4 7 0
W – Elian Balmaceda (3-1). L –
Kevin Robinson (0-4). S – Jack James (2). 2B – NSU,
Thomas Marsala III 2. 3B – NSU,
Sam Ardoin. HR – SFA, Ethan Pena (5). NSU,
Joe Siervo (6). Highlights: SFA, Swift 3-3, 2 RBIs; Mark Henning 2-5, 2 RBIs; Coby DeJesus 2-5; Pena 2-4, HR, RBI; Cooper Schneider 2-4. NSU, Marsala 2-5, 2 2Bs, RBI.
Records: Stephen F. Austin 29-25, Northwestern State 26-25.
