A baker’s dozen of outstanding individuals in Northwestern State’s athletic history will receive the Demons’ ultimate honor Saturday morning during Homecoming festivities, while the soccer team prepares to rebound at home Sunday after an agonizing loss on the road Thursday night.
N-CLUB HALL: Ten standout student-athletes, a championship-collecting coach and two of the athletic program’s ultimate “glue guys” will be inducted Saturday morning in the N-Club Hall of Fame, honoring remarkable figures through over a century of competition.
A group of 13 former student-athletes, coaches and staff will be honored in a 9 a.m. ceremony in the Magale Recital Hall on campus. A continental breakfast begins at 8. Admission is free and open to the public.
Five-time track and field All-American Mike Brown leads a group of competitive-ballot inductees that span seven sports and includes another All-American in football offensive lineman Greg Buckley.
Buckley is joined by two fellow football standouts – quarterback Warren Patterson and tight end Carlos Treadway. Joining football with multiple selections are baseball – pitcher Jason Slanina and first baseman Anatole Vincent – and soccer – Katie Priest Riccobono and coach Jimmy Mitchell, the program’s all-time leader in wins who took Northwestern to three NCAA Tournaments.
Women’s basketball standout Louise Chase, softball pitching ace Crista Miller Hobbs and men’s basketball post presence Byron Allen represent their sports while the final member of the 2026 class, John Fleckenstein, encompassed most of the athletic department during his time as a manager and trainer. Steve Pezant, a longtime presence officially and unofficially around Northwestern State athletics, has been selected as the Distinguished Service Award for his contributions to Demon athletics.
Brown will be inducted posthumously.
SOCCER: Southeastern Louisiana scored late in the game in a 1-0 Southland Conference soccer win over Northwestern on Thursday at Strawberry Stadium.
NSU (7-8, 4-3) dropped its second consecutive game. The Lions (8-6-2, 4-3-1) found the back of the net off a rebound to score the game’s only goal in the 89th minute.
Kaitlyn Tung broke free and attempted a shot that was saved by NSU goalkeeper Audrey Marfia, but the rebound bounced back to Tung, who sent it home on the right side of the goal.
It finished off an offensive flurry for the Lions to end the game, as SLU had four shot attempts in a span of 26 seconds in the 89th minute, capped off by the Tung decisive goal.
“I thought in the first half we weren’t very good and was disappointed with the way we were playing,” head coach Ian Brophy said. “I thought we looked competitive and just didn’t complete enough passes in the second. We were just very poor technically in the first half and then I thought we played much better in the second half and got into a rhythm and then I was just frustrated by some of the chances that we gave away and, especially at the end, not to have the maturity to see out the game in the right way and get a really valuable point on the road.
“It’s very frustrating. Like I told the team after the game, it’s medicine and we’ve got to take it. It doesn’t taste good, but we’ve got to figure out how we can get better from this and use it to learn and improve.”
Marfia made two saves in that flurry and six for the game for the Demons, which have lost three out of five games after a 2-0 start in Southland play.
Chances were at a premium the entire game with few scoring chances, as the Lions led in shots 16-4 and shots on goal 7-2, but only a few were saves in dangerous opportunities.
The Demons return home to face a strong Nicholls team on Sunday before closing out the regular season at McNeese (Nov. 1) and at home against UTRGV (Nov. 5).