Box Score DENTON, Texas – The Northwestern State volleyball team dropped a pair of matches at the North Texas Invitational, falling 3-0 to both the host Mean Green (25-15, 25-17, 25-23) and Utah (25-15, 25-22, 25-15) Saturday at the Mean Green Volleyball Center.
 
The Lady Demons drop to 1-6 on the season as the Mean Green and the Utes improve to 4-3 and 7-0, respectively.
 
"Overall it was a pretty good weekend. The only disappointment was our defensive execution against North Texas for the 1st two sets," said co-head coach Hugh Hernesman. Outside of that, we played some pretty good volleyball against two great teams today. Both North Texas and Utah will be top 50-100 RPI schools when it is all said and done and they helped to give us more to work on this upcoming week of training."
 
UNT took control of the first and second sets, maintaining a constant lead throughout. NSU stayed consistent through the third set, holding a one-to-two point lead, but it would not be enough as the Mean Green pulled away with the 25-23 victory.
 
The Utes maintained control of the first and third sets. In set two, the Lady Demons battled backing and forth, holding a four-point lead at one point before Utah ran away with the shutout and their seventh consecutive win of the season.
 
Freshman Ashley Elrod racked up 15 kills and nine digs to lead the Lady Demons for the day, followed by Caiti O'Connell with 13 kills.
 
Libero Keelie Arnesson dug up 16 attacks as setter Natalie Jaeger put up 26 assists.
 
"We honestly treat our pre-conference tournaments as scrimmages to prepare ourselves for a strong conference schedule, so we're happy that we were able to improve on some things from last weekend and look forward to improving more heading into a strong tournament next weekend at Baylor," said Hernesman.
 
The Lady Demons head to Fairfield Inn North Baylor Classic on Friday to face-off with host Baylor, Colorado and Appalachian State before making their home debut on Sept. 17 against Southern Mississippi at seven o'clock at Prather Coliseum.