By JASON PUGH, Northwestern State Sports Information Director
GRAMBLING – Place any adjective in front of the word “win” and it fits.
First-year head coach Chris Bertrand had one in mind after Northwestern State’s 4-1 victory at Grambling on Tuesday night.
“We told the team after the game we felt that was a working man’s win,” Bertrand said. “Complementary baseball is something we always talk about. Not the sexiest in terms of statistics or things you’d like to have a little more control of but a very workmanlike approach, a working man’s win. You can’t say enough about the four individuals who hit the mound threw the baseball tonight, and it starts with Kevin Robinson with his longest outing of the year.”
Behind five-plus quality innings on the bump from Robinson (1-1), the freshman from Byrd High School who earned his first win, the Demons (10-19) took a shutout into the eighth inning.
Robinson, last spring’s Shreveport-Bossier Journal All-Metro MVP, struck out four and allowed four hits, exiting after the first two hitters in the sixth inning reached. The five innings marked a career long for Robinson, coming a week after he struck out a career-high six batters against Louisiana Christian.
“It builds confidence in terms of earning confidence from the team,” said Robinson, who has emerged as the Demons’ primary midweek starter. “I just want to go out and pound the zone and let my guys work. My defense was big all night. I just throw strikes and let the ball get put in play so they can work.”
The NSU defense was at its best while playing its first game on a fully natural grass surface since a Feb. 24 game against Stony Brook in Baton Rouge.
Never was it more apparent than in the fifth and sixth innings when the Demons kept Grambling (10-16) at bay with a pair of rally-killing double plays.
After Demarckus Smiley led off the fifth with a single, Robinson induced a ground ball up the middle that second baseman Samuel Stephenson turned into a 4-3 double play.
One inning later, right-handed reliever Will Reed began his escape from a bases-loaded, no-out jam by getting a 5-2-3 double play off the bat of Kyle Walker for the first two outs of the inning. Two batters later, Reed escaped the jam to maintain the Demons’ 4-0 lead.
“The defense picked us up all night,” Bertrand said. “Those were huge double plays and allowed us to walk away from those situations with a couple of bagels.”
That defense and the pitching from Robinson, Reed, Alejandro Marquez and Tyler Bryan (third save) made the Demons’ early game offense stand up.
Reese Lipoma scored on a passed ball after leading off the game with a double off Carlos Peguero (1-6).
Peguero settled in, retiring nine straight batters before issuing consecutive one-out walks to Rocco Gump and Daniel Burroway before Clay Jung connected on a three-run home run to give the Demons a 4-0 fourth-inning lead.
Jung’s second home run of the year was the second of NSU’s three hits in the game and carried deep over the right-center field wall.
“The first at-bat, he got the best of me,” Jung said. “I let a good one go by, and he got me with the breaking ball. I went into the next at-bat hunting something I could hit hard. He left a fastball over the middle. I knew I got it all, but I didn’t know if it had the height.”
The Demons return to action tonight when they host ULM. First pitch is set for 6 p.m. at Brown-Stroud Field.
Contact Jason at pughj@nsula.edu