LAKE CHARLES – Northwestern State starting pitcher Drayton Brown tossed the first complete game of his career and the Demons used a four-run sixth inning to help pull away for a 6-2 win over McNeese and eliminating the Cowboys on day four of the 2023 Southland Conference Baseball Tournament.
McNeese ends its season at 35-23 while NSU improved to 29-26 and advanced to play New Orleans Friday night in a semi-final matchup. The winner will play Nicholls in Saturday's championship game at 1 p.m. and must beat the Colonels twice to clinch the title. Nicholls defeated UNO 5-3 in the day's first game.
Brown evened his record at 6-6 with the win after going the distance, allowing six hits, two runs, walked two and struck out three.
Cowboy starting pitcher
Burrell Jones (4-5) suffered the loss after he allowed two runs on four hits in five innings. He walked one and struck out one.
The Demons took a 2-0 lead in the bottom of the second inning on a Broch Holmes home run, his second in as many days and fifth on the season.
A double by McNeese's
Josh Leslie in the top of the third scored
Payton Harden to cut the margin to 2-1.
The Demons began the bottom of the sixth when Gabe Colaianni reached on a fielding error by McNeese relief pitcher
Derrick Cherry. The next two batters reached by a hit-by-pitch and a walk to load the bases, then a wild pitch scored a run to make it 3-1. A second walk credited to Cherry loaded the bases for the second time before another pitching change brought
Cameron Lejeune out of the pen.
Bo Willis hit a two-run single to put the Demons up 5-1, and after another pitching change to bring in
Christian Vega, a bases loaded hit-by-pitch scored the sixth run of the contest.
McNeese attempted a top of the eighth rally when
Braden Duhon led off with a single. But the Cowboys caught a bad break with
Taylor Darden at the plate when a pitch over his head hit his bat the and ball landed in play as the Demons got the out at first.
Leslie scored Duhon with a single to left field to cut the margin to 6-2 and Tré Obregon III double to right-center field to put runner at second and third.
Brad Burckel's hard grounder to first base was well played for the third out of the inning.
The Cowboys went down in order in the ninth to end the game.
The top three batters in the Cowboys' order collected five of the six hits in the game with Leslie and Obregon each recording two.
Holmes led NSU with three of his team's eight hits.
