NEW ORLEANS – Northwestern State’s second game of its two-game midweek road trip played out much like the first one.
For the second time in as many nights, the Demons found themselves down early and a mid-game comeback came up short as Northwestern fell to Tulane, 8-4, at Greer Field at Turchin Stadium on Wednesday night.
The Demons return to action Friday when they host Southland Conference newcomer UT-Rio Grande Valley. NSU is fourth in the 12-team SLC standings and UTRGV is second. First pitch is set for 6:30 p.m. at Brown-Stroud Field.
The Green Wave (18-12) snapped a five-game skid and handed Northwestern (18-11) only its fourth loss in the last 18 games.
“In the first five innings of the ball game, we dug ourselves a hole that eventually proved too big to climb out of,” second-year NSU coach Chris Bertrand said. “We showed some fight in the last four innings and made it a ball game and created some opportunities. I made a point to the guys, when the first ball of the ball game is an error – and you look at the amount of infield hits we got later in the ball game – it was a night I felt like, if we could put the ball in play, we could create some pressure. We just didn’t prove to be able to do that, and it allowed them to settle in quite a bit.”
Green Wave starter Michael Lombardi (1-0) escaped the error and subsequent sacrifice bunt by striking out two straight Northwestern hitters with Reese Lipoma at third.
That began a pattern for Tulane pitching as Lombardi, Carter Benbrook and Wes Burton – the first three of seven Green Wave pitchers – struck out at least two batters in each of the first four innings.
While the Green Wave stacked up strikeouts on the mound, the Tulane offense was taking advantage of a walk-heavy night from the Demon pitching staff.
Eight Northwestern pitchers combined to issue 11 walks. Two of those came home to score on Hugh Pinkney’s bases-clearing double that was part of a four-run third inning against Demon starter Brandon Carter (0-1).
Overall, five of Tulane’s eight runs reached base via walks.
“That’s just too many gifts to a talented ball club in their ballpark,” Bertrand said. “They were a hungry ball club, looking at what both clubs had done coming in. Us gifting them way too many things was just kind of the difference in how deep the hole was dug early in the game.”
Like they did Tuesday night at UL Lafayette, the Demons put together a rally in the middle innings.
Clay Jung and Daniel Burroway connected on back-to-back home runs in the sixth inning – the second time in their Demon careers they have done so – to slice the lead to 7-4. Jung’s three-run shot off Grayson Smith came after Rocco Gump drew a two-out walk and Balin Valentine singled.
Burroway then welcomed Garrett Payne with an opposite-field solo shot to give the Demons their first set of back-to-back home runs since Jung and Burroway blasted consecutive shots at Nicholls on April 12, 2024.
The Demon bullpen, in turn, took that momentum and ran with it, keeping Tulane off the board in the sixth and seventh innings. However, the Green Wave used their second double play of the game to erase an eighth-inning leadoff infield single by Valentine to keep the Demons from pulling any closer.
“We’re disappointed with the results of it because we want to showcase the ballclub in a different way,” Bertrand said. “However, we’re well aware we can learn from that, because those are the types of arms the top teams in our league are going to roll out at us if we are going to try to make a run at this thing. Those are the types of teams that, ultimately, we’re going to have to perform well against as we continue to grow the program.”