The Washington Demons will travel North today and face off against Cedar Rapids Xavier.

The Demons traveled to Mt. Vernon this past weekend and grabbed a couple of wins before coming into this week, but also may had a small step back.

During a practice session, Ashley Rausch was hit by a line drive in the face, causing some injury that head coach Angie Shrader says stopped her from play on the weekend, but should be okay within a week.

“[Rausch] does have a broken nose, and can play next week, she’ll just have to take some extra precautions, she’ll have to wear her mask that she used to wear,” Shrader said.

The Demons are now 28-6 overall, hitting .419, and almost on base half of the time they come up to bate. Their pitching staff has a combined ERA of 2.30 and opponents are hitting just over .200 at .203.

Xavier is 20-14 and hitting .295 with an on base percentage of .389, their pitching staff has a combined ERA of 3.21 and opponents are hitting .245.

Shrader says Washington will get to see a good team that will challenge them going into the regional tournament.

“For us as an offensive team, we know that we have the ability to possibly score anywhere from three to eight runs in an inning, we need to understand that other people can do the same thing to us as well,” Shrader said. “We have to make sure that we finish all the games and I think that [Xavier] will really prepare us, and the games we have played will prepare us for that.”

Although this is the game at hand for the Demons, their minds may be on the conference title as Mt. Pleasant and Fairfield meet up for the last conference games of the Southeast Iowa conference. The Demons are looking for the Panthers to take one from Fairfield to give the Demons a co-championship, but if Mt. Pleasant were to find a way to sweep, it would mean an individual conference title for Washington.

Shrader added that some of the parents and kids were trying to get Mt. Pleasant pumped up at the tournament to beat Fairfield tonight.

The Demons will not have to worry about Fairfield or other tough conference opponent Keokuk in the regional tournament as they are in separate regions.