JOURNAL SPORTS
BATON ROUGE – The last time the Northwestern State baseball team lost a Southland Conference series at home, the Demons responded by winning eight of its next 10 games.
The Demons hope to take the lessons learned from that stretch a month ago and apply them as they begin a four-game road trip with a 6:30 p.m. visit tonight to LSU.
“That’s exactly what it is – continual learning no matter how it comes about or where it comes from,” third-year head coach Chris Bertrand said. “We want to continuously learn. We’ll learn from this weekend’s ball games. We’ll work on what needs to be fixed, work on the deficiencies and the weaknesses that were exposed. We’ll continue to sharpen our strengths and be very intentional about mending the bodies and getting healthy.”
Both the Demons (23-13) and Tigers (22-15) enter the matchup coming off unsuccessful weekends.
Northwestern lost two of three Southand Conference games to Houston Christian at Brown-Stroud Field while LSU dropped all three games of its SEC series at Ole Miss. The Tigers enter the game in a four-game losing streak.
“We need to win a game,” Tigers coach Jay Johnson said.
LSU took four on the chin last week – a stunning 10-7 loss to No. 212 RPI Bethune-Cookman on Tuesday – and three at No. 13 RPI Ole Miss – 6-3, 12-2 by 10-run rule in seven innings and 8-7 after trailing 7-0 after six.
The Tigers are nowhere to be seen in any of the Division I college baseball polls after opening the season atop them. Their RPI has pummeled to 74.
“We haven’t won in a week. That’s enough for me,” Johnson said when asked about rankings. “I don’t know anything about standings or RPI or any of that.”
For what it’s worth, the Demons have been in the mid-50s in NCAA RPI earlier this season and currently sit at 102 after last weekend’s stumbles at home.
It didn’t knock NSU (14-7 in the league) out of the Southland lead, however, while LSU slipped to 6-9 in the SEC, ahead of only South Carolina and Missouri.
A season ago, the Demons handed LSU a 13-3, seven-inning defeat at Alex Box Stadium, waiting out a lightning delay as they won for the third time in the past six meetings between the teams. It was the first time this century that LSU was run-ruled at home in a non-conference game.
“We’ll take all factors into consideration, but we have to put (last year’s game) behind us and know it has no bearing on (Tuesday) night,” Bertrand said. “We still want to pull positives from it. Did we learn from that opportunity and what we accomplished? Take the good from it, but understand it needs to be put behind us and understand all the circumstances that are going on now.
“That team is not only going to be ready to play, but they’re at the point in their season where they have important things on the line, too. They’re obviously going to be ready to play as you always expect from an LSU team or a Jay Johnson-coached team.”
The Demons will send Baton Rouge native Wesley Marien (2-0, 3.16) to the mound for his first start of the season. A Parkview Baptist product, Marien has been one of the Demons’ most trusted relievers, leading the team with 11 relief appearances.
“It’s an opportunity for Wes, and we’re happy for all of those factors that are involved,” Bertrand said of Marien starting in his hometown. “That does play into it. We want him to have that experience, that level of, hopefully, comfort, but it’s also an opportunity for us to grow, develop and learn.”
The game will air on SEC Network Plus and 1130 KWKH AM.