Northwestern State’s fall sports teams, other than football, competed away from home over the weekend with tennis finding great success in Texas while volleyball couldn’t complete a sweep of its road trip in south Louisiana. Cross country tuned up for the Southland Conference Championships in two weeks with a meet in Mississippi.
VOLLEYBALL: After a dominant win Thursday at Nicholls, the Demons finished with just 23 kills as they were swept by the McNeese Cowgirls 3-0 (25-9, 25-21 and 25-16) Saturday afternoon at Townsley Law Arena.
The Demons (12-11, 4-4 SLC) hit just .080 for the match, the second lowest total of the season in kills and hit percentage. NSU was led by Elsie Sanchez with seven kills while Jade Longlad had 14 aces and Emmarie McFarland added nine digs.
The Cowgirls (8-11, 4-4 SLC) finished with a .343 hit percentage, the second-highest percentage for a Demons’ opponent this year.
“That team (McNeese) today played so good,” said Demon head coach Ben Kaszeta. “They had a great game plan and studied film and exploited every weakness we had today. They deserved that win today. We adjusted in game two but missed a couple of serves at crucial moments and deflated our momentum. I felt like we were trying to win with one swing or one serve at moments today. Sometimes when you are at a disadvantage, you try and do too much and unknowingly hurt yourself in the process and I felt that we did that today.”
The Demons are home Wednesday night to face the Lamar Cardinals (6-15, 3-5 SLC) at 6:30 p.m. in Prather Coliseum.
TENNIS: The Lady Demons tennis team completed a clean sweep of the Bearkat Invitational hosted by Sam Houston in Huntsville, Texas on Sunday. Honoka Umeda, Athina Grigoriadou and Nico Tagimi were unbeaten in singles and doubles play in the three-day event.
CROSS COUNTRY: Competing at Jackson, Miss., in the Watson Cross Country Classic, Northwestern freshmen led the way, with Tyler Newland setting the pace for the NSU men and Abby Poche crossing first for the Lady Demons. Newland, from Tioga, ran a 27:30.0 time in an 8K race to finish 81st out of 246 runners. Poche, a Buckeye product, took 29th place among 214 women’s competitors, finishing in 23:46.3 over 6K.
SOCCER: The Demon soccer team had an open weekend and is home Thursday night.