SAN ANTONIO – With an emphasis on closing out the regular season strong, the Northwestern State volleyball team plays its second to final match on Thursday when the squad travels to face Incarnate Word from the McDermott Center.

"The last few weeks here we've been really focused on raising our level of play," fifth-year co-head coach Hugh Hernesman said. "Our preparation has been the same as it has been in the past even though we're approaching our conference tournament. We don't want to change our routine."

In their first matchup of the season, NSU (11-16, 8-6 Southland Conference) utilized a strong defensive presence to claim a 3-1 victory over Incarnate Word (10-18, 6-8 SLC). According to Hernesman, however, this Cardinals' program will be slightly tweaked from what the squad saw just over one month ago at Prather Coliseum.

"Incarnate Word has won their last four league games so they've got some positive momentum going," Hernesman said. "They've changed their lineup quite a bit since we played them last so we'll have to learn a new lineup."

Senior Mackenzie Neely leads NSU in kills with 274 (2.74 per set) and points with 335 (3.35 per set). Fellow senior Stacey DiFrancesco enters the final week of the regular season just 12 kills shy of Tiffany Cronin's NSU record 1,291 kills.

Defensively, the Lady Demons ranks first in the league in opponent hitting percentage (.154) and blocks per set (2.50) and are second in digs per set (17.54). Junior middle blocker Glynna Johnson is third with 1.25 blocks per set while sophomore libero Bailey Martin is fourth with 5.01 digs per set.

The Lady Demons are coming off a hard-fought 3-1 loss on Friday to Southland Conference regular season champion Stephen F. Austin on the squad's senior night.

"I thought we played really well," Hernesman said. "I thought the issues we had when we played them the first time we corrected or at least improved. When you lose those three sets by a combined total of six or seven points, not a lot you can really complain about. The focus, intensity and effort were there."

Despite its fair share of adversity over the course of the season, NSU has locked up a spot in the Southland Conference Tournament, which will be held at Prather Coliseum for the first time in program history.

The Lady Demons close out the regular season on Saturday at 2 o'clock at Abilene Christian.