HAMMOND – Still searching for its first Southland Conference win away from home, the Northwestern State Lady Demons will be looking to garner that victory on Saturday when they visit Southeastern Louisiana at 2 in women's basketball action.
 
The Lady Demons (5-14, 1-5 SLC) are a half-game up on the Lady Lions (5-13, 0-5) in the league East Division standings and just two games behind in the win column for third place.
 
NSU is coming off a heartbreaking 58-56 loss to Lamar in its last outing.  Tiandra Williams' 3-point shot at the buzzer fell off the mark ruining an impressive rally that saw the Lady Demons come back from a 19-point, second half deficit.
 
Southeastern Louisiana lost for the fifth straight time after falling to Central Arkansas 71-54 in its last outing.
 
“The girls are playing really hard and did a great job of coming back against Lamar,” said head coach Jennifer Graf.  “We only scored 15 in the first half and were down by that much at the half.  We need to do a better job of getting out of the gate faster.”
 
Jasmine Upchurch had one of her better games of the season when she scored 21 points with 11 rebounds.  She was joined in the double-double column by Jordi James who scored 15 points with 10 boards.  And Trudy Armstead added 12 points for her sixth consecutive game when scoring double-digits.
 
James tops the team in scoring at 13.8 points a game while Armstead follows with a 13.1 per game average.  Armstead is also the team leader with 9.0 rebounds per game and is putting up 16 points and 10 rebounds in the six conference games.
 
Armstead, who topped the 100-career blocked shots milestone after getting two swats at Lamar, needs just nine rebounds to reach 500 in her career.
 
Southeastern's Aja Gibson leads her team in scoring with an 11.8 average as the Lady Lions are putting up 62.6 points a game as a team.
 
Saturday's game will be the 56^th meeting between the two schools with NSU leading 41-14 in the all-time series.  The Lady Demons have won five straight in the series including the last two played in Hammond.
 
The game will be broadcast live on the Demon Sports Network that is flagshipped by 100.7 KZBL in Natchitoches.
 
NSU will return home on Wednesday against Central Arkansas for a Southland Television regionally broadcast game.