SAN MARCOS, Texas — The Northwestern State women’s tennis team closed out the Texas State Invitational on Sunday with a competitive showing across both doubles and singles, wrapping up a productive weekend of fall competition that featured several tightly contested matches. 

The Lady Demons opened the morning with an impressive doubles session, highlighted by two dominant wins.  

Zoi Spyrou and Honoka Umeda picked up a 6-4 victory against UIW’s Luciana Perez Hernandez and Alexandra Mille. 

Athina Grigoriadou and Martina Acebedo Bonocore continued their stellar form with a 6-2 triumph over UTRGV’s Mariia Bakhtina and Luna Buijtenhuijs.  

Lolita Hukasian and Maria Farina battled through a back-and-forth match before narrowly falling 7-6(5) to UIW’s Estefania Gonzalez and Ine Lamprecht. 

In singles play, Farina delivered one of NSU’s top performances of the day, securing a convincing 6-3, 6-1 win over Texas State’s Emily Niers to close out her weekend on a high note. 

In two weeks, the  Lady Demons travel to Huntsville, Texas, to compete in the Bearkat Invitational, hosted by Sam Houston. 

VOLLEYBALL:  Deja Benjamin recorded her 400th career kill, but Northwestern was defeated by the Texas A&M-Corpus Christi Islanders, 3-0 (25-22, 25-15 and 25-18) Saturday afternoon on the road in a Southland Conference volleyball match.

The Demons (1-17, 0-4 Southland) came out strong as they had 15-11 lead midway through the first set highlighted by four kills from Samaya Wesson.

However, the Islanders (6-10, 2-2 Southland) rallied to tie the match at 22-22 before edging the Demons in the first set on three straight kills.

Despite the second set being controlled by the Islanders, Benjamin recorded her 400th career kill with the Demons trailing 18-10.

“I’m proud of Deja,” said Demon head coach Ben Kaszeta. “She has been through several system changes, and it shows a lot of maturity and grit for her to keep getting better.”

NSU had 33 kills led by Benjamin with 11.

The Demons will be back in action Thursday night when they play on the road against the Southeastern Lions.