NATCHITOCHES – The Northwestern State volleyball program will host its '1K Day' on Thursday evening, as the program seeks to break an attendance record by putting 1,000 fans in the stands against Central Arkansas, a team that has won 38 straight Southland Conference matches dating to October 2012.

The match is slated for 7 o'clock at Prather Coliseum, and if 1,000 fans are in attendance, $1,000 in gift cards and cash will be given away to multiple winners. The current attendance record of 815 was set one season ago against UCA.

"That was the first time we've had that intense of a crowd," fifth-year co-head coach Hugh Hernesman said of the crowd during the Sugar Bears' last visit. "I know that our team feeds off of that. For every home team, it gives them an extra boost of confidence and adrenaline. We're looking forward to another good crowd."

Northwestern State (10-14, 7-4 SLC) is coming off its first home loss of the season on Saturday, when the Lady Demons fell in five sets to Sam Houston State, despite posting one of its strongest offensive outputs of the season.

"We'll need to provide that kind of an offense on Thursday night," Hernesman said. "I thought Vanessa Coleman was very good in the middle. I thought Aubrey Davis had a really good match. When some of our players outside Mackenzie Neely, Stacey DiFrancesco, Caiti O'Connell and the regular names that generally come up; when those others players, when they perform – Glynna Johnson has had some incredible offensive matches for us – it makes us really dangerous."

Central Arkansas (15-7, 10-0 SLC) heads to Natchitoches for the middle game of a spread-out, three-match road swing. Thursday's match will be the first in nine days for the Sugar Bears, who defeated Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, 3-1 last Tuesday.

The match will pit arguably the conference's strongest offense in Central Arkansas against NSU's shutdown defense. As a unit, the Lady Demons rank first in the league in opponent hitting percentage (.154), blocks per set (2.46) and digs per set (17.68) while UCA takes the top spot in hitting percentage (.232) and kills per set (13.39) in addition to placing second in assists per set (12.44).

The Lady Demons are led by junior middle blocker Glynna Johnson, who ranks second in the Southland at 1.26 blocks per set and first with 121 total blocks. Sophomore Bailey Martin has emerged one of the league's elite liberos, posting 5.08 digs per set, good enough for third.

The Sugar Bears boast a dangerous left side in junior Heather Schnars, who ranks second in kills per set (4.20) and fourth in service aces per set (0.36), and sophomore Evie Singleton, who is eighth in kills per set (3.49) and sixth in service aces per set (0.34). Schnars is also one of the league's most talented hitters, ranking fifth with a .301 attack percentage.

"Those two hit it hard," Hernesman said. "They are very aggressive. They're helped by the tempo offense they run so they get some good looks. Because of the speed of their offense, we have to defend that in the backcourt and make some early reads and secondary reads that become very crucial."

Thursday's match will be the 25^th overall meeting between Central Arkansas and Northwestern State with the Sugar Bears holding a 19-5 advantage. The last time the squads met, it was for the Southland Conference Tournament title as NSU pushed UCA to five sets before falling just short.