GRAMBLING – If the Northwestern State baseball team were to split its 12-9 victory against Grambling in half, the Demons would find learning experiences in both.
Northwestern broke quickly against the Tigers, scoring in the first four innings at Wilbert Ellis Field at R.W.E. Jones Park for a 10-1 lead, then hung on to grab its third win in the first four games of a seven-game road trip.
“What we told the guys was we felt like this one takes a certain level of maturity, and it takes a certain level of emotional stability to be able to process what took place,” second-year head coach Chris Bertrand said. “There’s one side of us that has to be happy with a road win, has to be happy with the first road midweek win of the year. We have to be happy with scoring 12 runs. We have to be happy with doing some things offensively without two of our better offensive players (Reese Lipoma and Daniel Burroway).”
The Demons (12-8) built on a strong offensive end to their weekend series at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi by scoring five first-inning runs off Grambling starter Nick Robinson (0-3), who did not record an out.
Braden Benton’s two-out double highlighted an inning that also included the first three of 11 walks drawn by the Demon offense.
After Trey Bridges homered off Northwestern starter Kevin Robinson (4-0) in the bottom of the first, Rocco Gump answered with his third home run of the season in the second before a pair of freshmen pitchers maintained the Demons’ momentum.
Right-hander Wesley Marien and left-hander Jacob LeBlanc retired all six Tigers (7-12) they faced with a combined three strikeouts.
“The first three guys who took the mound did a really, really good job, and that’s the way you want to see it happen,” Bertrand said. “They were quick, they were efficient and they held the momentum on our side of the field, especially after we were able to get an early lead.”
Backed by those quick innings, the Demon lead expanded to nine with twin two-run innings in the third and fourth before the Tigers launched their comeback.
A two-out, fourth-inning rally that saw Grambling push across two runs shifted the momentum to the home dugout, and Tigers rarely let it go in the final five-plus innings.
Grambling scored in its final six at-bats, but the Demons were able to avoid the crooked numbers have plagued them in previous games.
Northwestern manufactured pivotal runs in the sixth and ninth innings.
In the sixth, Bryce Johnson reached on a pop-fly double and scored on a two-base passed ball. In the ninth, JD DiPrima doubled for his first hit of the season, stole third and scored on Samuel Stephenson’s one-out sacrifice fly.
Those runs allowed the Demons to stem the tide and pick up their eighth win in their past nine games.
Northwestern goes to New Orleans for a three-game Southland Conference series this weekend against UNO.
