A season ago, the Northwestern State baseball team blasted a school single-season record 63 home runs.
That was the good news. The big question was how would the 2026 Demons react to losing players who slugged all but six of those?
Northwestern provided a strong response Sunday afternoon, slugging four home runs en route to a 10-3 victory that clinched a three-game sweep of former Southland Conference rival UT Arlington at Brown-Stroud Field.
The Demons got a two-run, eighth-inning tying home run by newcomer Grant Comeaux and won Friday’s opener 3-2 on a 14th-inning RBI single from another newbie, Joe Siervo. Saturday, a five-run seventh inning following Thomas Marsala’s sixth-inning two-run homer made the difference in an 8-3 NSU victory.
“It’s a testament to having great players, and it’s a testament to having great coaches and those combinations being willing to put in the work,” third-year head coach Chris Bertand said. “The way (assistant coach and recruiting coordinator) Dylan (Belanger) has built our roster and gotten us what we needed. The way that (assistant coach) Sam (Taylor) and (former assistant coach) Billy (Henley) before him and the rest of the coaching staff puts in the work to be able to develop those players. It speaks to the overall program for what we’re trying to build.”
For the first time all weekend, the Demons (3-0) built an early lead. After fashioning come-from-behind victories in the late innings Friday and Saturday, Northwestern scored first for the first time this season when Sebastian Huerta swatted a two-out solo home run in the second inning off UTA right-hander Dylan Skolfield (0-1).
That swing delivered Huerta’s first career home run and was part of a career-high-tying, three-hit day for the senior catcher.
Colton Harrison joined Huerta as first-time Northwestern home run hitters in the third inning, launching a high-arcing solo blast to left field that was followed by an opposite-field home run by Thomas Marsala III on the ensuing pitch.
Those three runs were more than enough for Huerta’s batterymate, senior right-hander Trent Hillen.
Hillen tossed five innings of one-run ball, matching his career high with eight strikeouts while scattering three hits. Each of the three Demon starters on the weekend worked at least five innings and did not allow more than two runs.
“I just watched Carter (White) and Dylan (Marionneaux) all weekend just execute pitches,” Hillen said. “That gave me confidence to go out and just do me. We started the first two innings in a tight game. Once we started scoring more, I had to hold them to zeroes. After they hit a solo home run, it was 3-1 at the time. My offense went out and scored runs, and I just had to keep executing pitches.”
The Demons effectively put the game away after Hillen departed, tacking on four runs in the bottom of the fifth.
UTA (0-3) was able to pull within four after scoring single runs in the seventh and eighth innings before the Demons capped their long-ball barrage with another first-time blast.
After a Joe Siervo RBI double, JT Simonelli drove the first pitch he saw from Jacob Gabler over the center-field wall for a two-run home run that capped a six-homer weekend for the Demons.
The Demons return to action Tuesday when they host ULM at 6 p.m. at Brown-Stroud Field.