Box Score NATCHITOCHES – The twin tower duo of Trudy Armstead and Jasmine Upchurch along with an attacking defense helped smother sporadic sluggish offensive play by Northwestern State as the Lady Demons easily handled LSU-Shreveport 63-40 Monday night  in the final non-conference tune-up before starting Southland Conference play on Saturday at Texas State.
 
Armstead, a 6-1 forward, grabbed a career-high 19 rebounds, 16 of those on the defensive glass, while Upchurch, a 6-3 center, corralled 13 boards to go along with a career-best 22 points to help lead the Lady Demons (4-9) to their first win in the last five tries.
 
“I saw a lot of good things tonight,” said head coach Jennifer Graf.  “A couple of things we wanted to do was to hold them (LSUS) under 55 points and I thought we did a great job of doing that.”
 
Playing with seven players dressed out and just six in the second half as senior starting point guard Ronikka Drake sat the majoring of the half while nursing a thumb injury she suffered in the Dec. 30 game against Jackson State, the Lady Demons' defense, who entered the game allowing just over 74 points a game, managed to find a way to keep the Lady Pilots off the scoreboard as they held LSUS to just 16 second half points and 25 percent shooting for the game.
 
“We know we can't pick up teams full court for 40 minutes any longer with our 6-7 man rotation that we have, but I thought that the minutes we were able to pick them up full court that we did a great job with that,” said Graf.  “We're going to have to work that into our rotation and just be able to condition ourselves to do that, at least in spurts.  I thought that was the difference of us being able to get some steals and really put them on their heels.”
 
Meredith Graf added 13 points after she hit 3 of 8 from 3-point range and Jordi James scored 11 to round out the double figure scorers for the Lady Demons.
  But the story of the game was the intense rebounding the Lady Demons did on both ends of the floor.  The 19 boards by Armstead were the most by a Lady Demon player since Tena Matthews' 19 rebounds at UNO on Nov. 22, 2006.  The 56 team rebounds notched the second time this season the Lady Demons have had 50 or more boards in a game, and the 10^th time in 13 games they've pulled 40 or more.
 
After taking a 38-24 lead into the break, the Lady Demons held the Lady Pilots to four points in the first 10 minutes of the second half and built a 50-28 lead with 9:39 to go until LSUS snapped a long drought with a jumper by Tynekqua Warren to make it 50-30.
 
Upchurch, who entered the game ranked seventh in the Southland in field goal shooting, scored the game's next five points to give NSU it's largest lead at 55-30 with 6:09 to play.  She finished the game hitting 10 of 14 from the field.
 
As a team, the Lady Demons knocked down only 37.7 percent (26 of 69) with most of those misses coming in the second half behind 10 of 36 shooting (27.8 percent).  NSU was also 4 of 20 for 20 percent from 3-point range but knocked down 7 of 9 from the free throw line, an area the Lady Demons have struggled lately.
 
Christy Willis and Sharde Henry led the Lady Pilots (6-5) with eight points apiece as the game was played as an exhibition for the NAIA squad.
 
Northwestern State opened up the scoring and tacked on a 26-8 run over an eight minute span after leading 10-6 with 14:58 to play in the first half to grab its largest lead of the game at 38-16 with 6:51 left.
 
At one point, NSU had knocked down nine of its first 13 shots for 69.2 percent but ended the frame hitting 7 of 20 and finished the half at 48.5 percent while LSU-Shreveport scored held the Lady Demons scoreless over the final 5:33 and closed on an 8-0 run as NSU went into the lockerroom with a 38-24 lead.