Each time the Northwestern State baseball team takes to the Brown-Stroud Field turf is special for third-year head coach Chris Bertrand.
This weekend’s three-game Southland Conference series against Stephen F. Austin at the Demons’ home park is even slightly more so as Northwestern will honor 12 seniors following Sunday’s series finale with the Lumberjacks.
The series begins at 6:30 p.m. this evening before moving to 2 p.m. Saturday and 1 p.m. Sunday with the Senior Day festivities to follow that game. All three games will air on ESPN+ with Sunday’s finale also being carried on 100.7 FM KZBL in Natchitoches with free streaming audio available on the Northwestern State Athletics mobile app, which can be downloaded free for Apple and Android devices.
A dozen Demons – pitchers Connor Wilson, Caden Fiveash, Trent Hillen, JC Acosta, Adam Alexis and Chase Prestwich, catchers Sebastian Huerta and Mason Wray, outfielders Bryce Johnson and Joe Siervo and infielders Thomas Marsala III and Ethan Menard – will be feted Sunday. That group covers a wide range of experiences — and experience — in Northwestern purple and white.
On the field, both the Demons (23-18, 14-10) and Lumberjacks (22-20, 11-10) are both looking to shift back into a positive direction.
Each team was swept in its most recent Southland series with Northwestern dropping three at Lamar while Stephen F. Austin lost three straight at home to Nicholls.
Despite their recent struggles, the Lumberjacks already have improved their conference win total from a season ago when they finished 9-21 in the conference.
“In the whole Southland Conference by and large, people are playing an incredible brand of baseball,” Bertrand said. “It is to be respected. Every time they say, ‘Play ball,’ and we take the field for a Southland Conference game, it is to be respected among your opponents, and you have to bring everything you’ve got. You’ve got to be mentally and physically prepared, locked in and focused. You have to be at your best if you expect games to be in the win column. We respect the heck of the job (head coach) Matt (Vanderburg) is doing and how well they have played. We are preparing ourselves for a wonderful three-game battle.”
Northwestern seemed poised for a breakout Wednesday night at Southern when the Demons held a 2-0 lead in the fourth inning before a rainstorm washed away the game before it reached the five-inning threshold to be an official game.
Still, Bertrand saw value in the short competition with the Jaguars.
“We’re grateful for what we got to do and to learn,” he said. “It was an unfortunate circumstance that we didn’t get to finish the ballgame, but we had a great day of travel. We enjoyed the time spent together. I thought we had an opportunity in those (four) innings to put a game plan against a starting pitcher into action. We took some really good swings, and it was unfortunate the way it played itself out, but there were some great things that took place Tuesday and Wednesday for Demon baseball that we are excited to learn from and then put into action as we move into this weekend and into this nine-game stretch run to finish it out.”
Part of those good feelings come from playing at home, which the Demons will do for the final time in the regular season this weekend.
“The B-Stro, for what it is and what it has become to our team, we are constantly trying to grow it,” Bertrand said. “Obviously, the baseball and the baseball team is the biggest piece of that pie and is at the forefront, but we want to be all-inclusive. We want to continue toe enhance the facility, enhance the fan experience, the student-athlete experience and player development. We want to give them something to play on that they can be proud of. Our fans have built into not only being there for the team but also being there for each other.
“The relationships that are forged there, you can tell people enjoy coming for so many reasons. The fact we see so many little kids running around in Demon baseball jerseys, I can’t say enough about the stakeholders of our program helping us grow this to a point where Demon baseball is really, really special because of all of those things.”
