NATCHITOCHES – The Northwestern State volleyball team opens up the 2012 season this Friday against Kansas at the Arkansas Invitational.
 
The Jayhawks narrowly missed out on a bid to the 2011 NCAA Tournament, finishing at No. 47 in the NCAA RPI. The 2012 Kansas team returns five starters from last year and are projected to finish sixth in the Big 12.
 
The 2012 Northwestern State squad returns 11 letter winners from last season, including 2011 standouts Stacey DiFrancesco, who became the first NSU player in history to earn Southland Conference Freshman of the Year, and Keelie Arneson, who broke the single-season digs record at NSU last season.
 
Also returning to the court this season is sophomore Emily Sweet who, along with DiFrancesco, earned 2012 preseason honors. In 2011, Sweet recorded nine double-doubles and finished sixth in the SLC in assists with 1003.
 
Senior Nicole Hajka also continues to impress, showing tremendous improvement by finishing the 2011 season with nine times as many kills (146) as she recorded in the 2010 season.
 
NSU also adds three talented freshmen to the mix with Kaitlyn Brooks, Glynna Johnson and Amanda Kunz.
 
Brooks, a talented setter from Sugarland, TX, comes off of a great club season that ended with her being named All-American at USA Volleyball's Junior National Championships.
 
The Lady Demons are slated to play and additional two matches on Saturday. They will face off against tournament host, Arkansas and the Skyhawks of Tennessee-Martin.
 
The Razorbacks return 10 letter winners, including five starters and their number one libero, from a 2011 squad that finished at No. 67 in the NCAA RPI.
 
Along with their returning talent, PrepVolleyball.com has ranked Arkansas' freshman class as the No. 26 group in the country. UA was picked to finish third in the 2012 Southeastern Conference Preseason Polls.
 
“Kansas and Arkansas are teams that are going to be bigger and more physical than us so we generally try to treat those teams the same,” said co-head coach Hugh Hernesman. “We just know that we have to have an aggressive mindset when we play more physical teams. I think our girls do a good job of not backing down to those kinds of teams but we do have to change a little bit of what we do.”
 
The Skyhawks also bring a challenge for the Lady Demons as they were picked to finish fourth in the Ohio Valley Conference for the 2012 season after making an appearance in the conference championship last season.
 
“The biggest thing about week one for us is we just want to see where we are at,” said Hernesman. “We want to see what pieces work with different players and to see how well we execute our systems. We have a chance to see what we've got against high-level competition. I just really want to see where we're at right now but our real focus every year is the conference season.”
 
The Lady Demons continue their season on the road next weekend at the Texas Tech. Invitational.