Lady Demons complete sweep of UIW behind Rhoden’s shutout

NATCHITOCHES – Northwestern State turned senior Saturday into sweep Saturday thanks to yet another stellar pitching performance and enough offense to secure the 2-0 win and three-game sweep of UIW.

Bronte Rhoden threw the second complete game shutout of the weekend with a new career-high 12 strikeouts. It was the ninth shutout this season for the NSU pitching staff and the 16th time they have struck out 10 or more batters in a game.

“She did a really great job, especially after being sick during the middle of the week,” head coach Donald Pickett said. “We worried about that a little bit as to whether she was going to have her strength back. She’d been throwing the ball really well coming into the weekend. She only gave up a couple hits and did great keeping them honest, got ahead in the count and used their aggressiveness to her advantage.”

Rhoden was efficient and effective in zone from the outset. She needed just five pitches to get the first two outs of the game before the first of her 12 strikeouts ended the inning. She had at least one punch out in each of her seven innings of work throwing 95 total pitches to get all 21 outs.

“Curveball was working well today, screwball was good, backdoor curve, it was a good day out there,” she said. “Had a lot of help behind me with the defense too. Just felt good today.

“I was able to find the zone early and establish it early and just kept attacking. That’s what Coach Lexi (Smith) asks us to do is attack early and you’ll be good.”

Like they did in the second game on Friday, the Lady Demon offense provided some early run support behind the dominant pitching performance.

Tristin Court reached on one of her two walks in the game with one out in the bottom of the second. Maggie Black started her senior celebration early with an RBI double into the gap in left center that scored Court from first and allowed her to move to the third on the throw home.

“Maggie did a great job early in the game of getting that big double for us,” Pickett said. “That kind of opened the game up to where we got those early two runs. It was a huge hit to get us on the board early, and if you can do that in the last game that’s a big deal. Proud of her of coming out there and getting that done.”

Bailie Ragsdale beat out a dribbler to third but the wild throw trying to get her went up the right field line allowing Black to score and give NSU a 2-0 lead after the second inning.

NSU had no-out or one-out walks in each of the next three innings but each time were unable to add to the lead with the free bases provided to them. Twice they advanced to second or third with less than two outs.

“There were a couple of times where we had runners in scoring position and a chance to really open the game up, had really good hitter up and just didn’t have good at bats,” Pickett said. “There’s a difference between not coming through and not having a good at bat. We’ve got to have better quality at bats in those situations.”

The Lady Demons drew five walks for the second straight game, matching the second most against a conference foe this season.

NSU does not have another scheduled game until the May 6 doubleheader at Southeastern to begin the final regular season conference series of the year.