BEAUMONT, Texas — A goal in the final seven minutes from Houston Christian was too much to overcome for regular-season champion Northwestern State Thursday evening, making the difference in a 2-1 loss by the top-seeded Demons in the Southland Conference Soccer Tournament semifinals.

A goal on a header from Paisley Barela in the 83rd minute broke a 1-1 deadlock.

HCU (11-8-2) held the Demons (13-5-2) without a shot the remainder of the game to seal the outcome.

“It’s a tough game,” head coach Ian Brophy said. “I thought we played really well. I feel we were a little unlucky in the end. Sometimes you need the bounces to go your way and they didn’t tonight.”

Like in the regular season meeting won by HCU, the Huskies took the lead early in the second half. This one came on a penalty kick by Alexia Murillo.

In the first meeting, the Demons could not find the equalizer. In this one, they did, thanks to freshman Kendall Hemperley once again.

Two days after scoring the winning goal in overtime against McNeese, she tied the game with a blistering drive of a shot from the right side of the box in the 61st minute, going to the top left corner.

It came off an assist from Emily Senatore, who finishes her season with sensational junior campaign with 12 goals and 26 points, both of which finished in the top 10 for a single season in school history.

The game saw the NSU careers of Madison Murphy, Emily Mougia and Jessica Spitzer come to a close.

“They’ve been awesome,” Brophy said. “We’ve got a really special group of seniors, the way they’ve poured into the program and believing into what we could do here and buying into everything I threw at them. They’ve gone through a lot of changes here and they’ve been incredible people, incredible players and incredible leaders and I am grateful for everything they’ve done, and I’ll be forever thankful.”