NATCHITOCHES – Several activities surround the Northwestern State soccer weekend, and it all begins with the final road game of the regular season for the Lady Demons against Nicholls at 4 o'clock Friday afternoon and ends with NSU's annual "Kick Pink" game against Southeastern Louisiana on Sunday. 
 
Northwestern State (3-11-1, 0-6-1 Southland Conference) has a four-game skid heading into Friday, and is ending a five-game road swing that included Central Arkansas, Sam Houston State, Abilene Christian and McNeese State.  With a loss to Nicholls and win by McNeese State on Friday, the Lady Demons would fall out of the hunt for the six-team Southland Conference Tournament.
 
Nicholls (7-5, 3-2) enters the match with a two-game winning streak and a 2-0 home record on the season.  The lone conference match it has played at home was a 1-0 win over Texas A&M-Corpus Christi.
 
The meeting will be the 23^rd all-time between the two programs and the Lady Demons have taken 22 of those.
 
Nicholls has two players with points that reach into double-figures, Jess Coates with 13 and Spencer Valdespino who has 11. Valdespino tops the Colonels with five goals, and Coates is the leader in assists with five.
 
The Colonels have started three different goalkeepers on the season, but Taylor Mosley has started in eight contests with 757 minutes played.  She holds a 2.02 goals against average and .726 saves percentage.
 
Haley Golden is expected to start in goal for Nicholls and was named as the league's goalkeeper of the week for the week of Oct. 7.
 
Freshman Esdeina Gonzalez leads Northwestern State with 15 points on the year, and Julia Ranalli has seven points followed by six from Yanci Johnson and Nikki Saunders.
 
NSU's goalkeeper Alex Latham is 3-9-1 on the season, and has a .637 goals against average this season.  She has 58 saves in 172 shots faced and holds a 2.70 goals against average.
 
The Lady Demons go into the match after dropping a late heartbreaker at McNeese when the Cowgirls broke a 1-1 tie in the 72^nd minute.  Jackie Strug knocked in a goal off of a free kick just after halftime in that match.
 
The Colonels have conference wins over Corpus Christi, Incarnate Word and Lamar.  Corpus and UIW along with SLU are the last three opponents left in the regular season for Northwestern State.
 
Sunday's match against Southeastern Louisiana is slated for 1 o'clock in the Lady Demons Soccer Complex. The "Kick Pink" theme is a part of #ForkCancer Week shared throughout the athletics department with volleyball's "Dig Pink" game being Thursday and the American Cancer Society attending NSU's football game on Saturday.
 
Representatives from the Susan G. Komen Foundation will be available at Sunday's match, and NSU will be raffling off a team-autographed ball along with a silent action.