A balanced offensive attack helped the Northwestern State volleyball team to its fifth straight win, a 3-0 (25-22, 25-20 and 25-23) victory over the Louisiana Tech Bulldogs Tuesday night at Prather Coliseum.
“It was a great win tonight,” said Demons second-year head coach Ben Kaszeta. “This team is showing a lot, but we have a big weekend ahead of us and want to make sure we don’t get complacent. We will be business as usual at practice leading into the weekend. I trust this group will take this win and get in the moment of this weekend. Be glad we got this one now let’s keep going.”
NSU will head east to play in the Troy Invitational in Troy, Alabama, taking on Murray State (1-8) Friday at 3:30 p.m. On Saturday the Demons will face The Citadel (3-6) at 10:30 a.m. before wrapping up the weekend later in the day against Troy (2-4) at 3:30 p.m.
Having beaten ULM and Grambling 3-1 late last week at the Bulldog Bash in Lincoln Parish, Northwestern completed a sweep of its north Louisiana rivals by blanking Tech in front of a boisterous homecourt crowd.
The Demons (6-6) had a modest 15-12 lead at the first media timeout thanks to three kills from sophomore Kenadii Winfrey. Senior Jade Longlad had six assists and six digs in the first set alone to begin her path to a fourth straight double-double. NSU hung on to win the opening set 25-22.
The Bulldogs (6-5) opened the second set in the lead jumping out to an 11-5 advantage. However, the Demons stormed back on a 12-2 run to take a 17-15 lead following Longlad’s kill. NSU pulled away to win the second set 25-20 featuring a balanced attack. Winfrey, Olivia Nzioki, Amber Craig and Gillian Grace Wolf all had five kills after two sets.
In the third set, Northwestern got in a little trouble trailing late, 20-17. But as has been the case recently, the Demons never panicked and tied the game at 21-21 on a block by Winfrey.
Nzioki broke a 23-23 tie in the third set with back-to-back kills to secure the Demons’ fifth straight win.
“Honestly, I’ve just been working on my mental toughness,” said Nzioki. “I know that coming to this team I wanted to play and I had to put the work into to be the player I wanted to be.”
Nzioki, the reigning Southland Offensive Player of the Week, led the way with 10 kills while Winfrey had eight. Craig finished with seven and Grace had six as NSU hit .188 (38 kills, 16 errors, 117 attacks) for the match but held LTU to .118 (37 kills, 22 errors, 126 attacks).
Winfrey was also a huge x-factor for the Demons in the win.
“I just felt like I needed to contribute as much as I could tonight,” said Winfrey. “I knew this a big game and I wanted to make sure I did my part to help us as much as I could.”