It will be strength against strength in Northwestern State’s midweek matchup Tuesday night against Louisiana Tech.
The Lady Demons (16-13, 3-3) have been hot offensively past two weeks with a .337 team batting average over the past six games and hosts a Lady Techster (19-12, 4-5) pitching staff that leads Conference-USA with a sub-2.00 ERA.
First pitch for the final game in the home-and-home series between the two teams this year is set for 6 p.m. and can be seen on ESPN+.
Tuesday’s game is sponsored by Green Acres Car Wash located on Keyser Avenue in Natchitoches.
“Tech has a really good pitching staff,” head coach Donald Pickett said. “That’s definitely one of the strong points of their team. They’re able to mix and match with their staff and have done a great job of holding teams down this year. We’ve got to be able to generate some runs and hopefully we’re able to build on what we’ve done offensively the past couple of weeks.”
The offensive outburst for NSU began a week ago in Memphis when it exploded for 15 runs in a run-rule win against Memphis. That was part of a 21 run-25 hit day overall that carried over into the hit parade in Nicholls’ city this past weekend where the Demons totaled 29 hits in the three-game series.
Three of the first five batters in the NSU lineup, including the first two in the order Bailie Ragsdale and Taylor Williams, had five or more hits on the weekend with a .500 batting average or better. Makenzie Chaffin was the third player to do it, behind a career day on Saturday where she had four hits and two doubles.
Chaffin leads the team with a .376 batting average with four multi-hit games over the past six outings.
“Our offense it starting to pick up some steam and hopefully we’re able to keep building on that,” Pickett said. “The way teams are producing this year we may have to have four or five runs a game to be successful through those conference weekends.”
The Demon bats will be tested for the second time this season against the arm talent of the Lady Techsters.
In the meeting two weeks ago, NSU was shutout 5-0 and held to just three hits in the game. Ragsdale used her speed to pick up two infield singles in the game but only advanced as far as second base, in the top of the first, in the game. NSU had just one hit over the final four innings of the game.
Tech threw their top two pitchers in the game in Ruston, Brook Melnychuk and Mary Martinez who each have a 1.40 or lower ERA at this point in the season and were both below 1.25 when they faced the Demons earlier this month.
