HATTIESBURG, Miss. – After defeating previously ranked No. 52 Southern Methodist on Jan. 26, the No. 67 Northwestern State tennis team hits the road for a pair of matches at Southern Mississippi on Saturday and Alabama-Birmingham on Sunday, both slated to begin at eleven o'clock.
 
The Lady Demons (1-0) took a break in their pre-conference schedule last weekend and will remain on the road for the next two weekends before hosting five teams in a row at the Jack Fisher Tennis Complex, beginning with Louisiana-Lafayette and Texas-San Antonio on Feb. 22 and 23, respectively.
 
The Lady Demons meet up with the Golden Eagles (2-2 overall, 0-1 C-USA) for the 13^th time in program history after walking away with a 7-0 victory last season. NSU has collided with UAB (1-2 overall, 0-1 C-USA) just once, back in 2007, falling to the Blazers in a tight 4-3 battle.
 
With just one match under its belt, NSU's Polina Konop, Kateryna Piataokva and Aliona Ladutska hold perfect records at No. 2, No. 3 and No. 6 singles, respectively. Konop combined with Tatiana Larina for a win at No. 1 doubles, as well as Piatakova with Natalya Krutova at No. 2 doubles.
 
Larina and Krutova dropped extremely close sets in singles against SMU, falling 4-6, 6-4, 15-13 and 6-2, 4-6, 10-6, respectively.
 
Northwestern State will head to New Orleans and Baton Rouge next weekend to take on Southeastern Conference foes Auburn and LSU. The Lady Demons open Southland Conference play on Mar. 4 at league newcomer Abilene Christian.