Box Score WACO, Texas – In her first game back from injury, senior libero Keelie Arneson captured 31 digs but Northwestern State fell 3-1 (20-25, 29-27, 22-25, 19-25) to a talented Baylor squad at the Ferrell Center on Tuesday night.

"We're starting to look more like us," fifth-year head coach Hugh Hernesman said. "I thought it was a real good effort against a very good Baylor team that I believe will do well in the Big 12 this year. I'm real proud how hard we competed and challenged a more physical team. Now, we really need to focus on building upon this heading into the weekend."

Arneson, who had missed the team's last four matches and had not played since Sept. 6, posted her highest number of digs since tallying 35 in the season opener against North Texas.

"It was nice having Keelie back on the floor and she look pretty good for essentially not touching the ball for a week and a half," Hernesman said. "Her experience in the system really allows us to make the occasional system error and she'll clean up the mistake."

NSU (3-7) started out of the gate quickly, posting a 3-0 lead on a Mackenzie Neely kill before Baylor (9-2) scored its first point. A Stacey DiFrancesco kill brought the score to 8-7 in favor of Baylor before the Bears went on a run of five consecutive points to claim a 13-7 lead. A trio of attack errors brought NSU within two at 14-12 and later a Glynna Johnson kill helped knot the score at 18 for the first time since 6-6.

The two squads again sat deadlocked at 20 following a Baylor attack error but the Bears rallied off five straight points to claim set one, 25-20.

The two squads found themselves again deadlocked early in the second set. An Ashley Elrod kill knotted things at 9-9 but the Bears would open a lead and found themselves ahead by three as late as 17-14. The Lad Demons were resurgent, taking four of five points highlighted by a Vanessa Coleman kill to tie the set 18-18.

Baylor responded by taking four points in five opportunities to push its lead to 22-19. Neely scored two straight points for NSU on a service ace and a kill as DiFrancesco made it three straight with another kill to tie the set at 22-22 and force a Baylor timeout.

Baylor had two opportunities to close out set two but NSU's tenacity prevailed. Kills from Caiti O'Connell and Coleman kept the Lady Demons alive. With the set tied at 27, NSU captured two consecutive points on a DiFrancesco kill and ended it on a bad set from Baylor to secure it, 29-27.

Set three opened with the two dueling it out early on, with the score tied six times as the two sat knotted at 10. The Bears turned on the burners from there, scoring six straight points to lead 18-12. NSU made a run of five points including four consecutive kills to bring the lead back down to 20-17 in favor of Baylor. It would not be enough. Despite staving off three straight set points, the Bears held on 25-22, and took a 2-1 lead.

In a must-have set four, NSU did not get the start it wanted with Baylor's run of five points putting the Bears ahead 7-2. When Baylor secured its tenth point shortly later, the deficit had reached six. Four straight NSU points, helped by Baylor miscues forced a Bears timeout with the lead down to 13-9.

Back-to-back Glynna Johnson and DiFrancesco kills put NSU down two at 18-16. The Baylor lead was two as late as 21-19 but the Bears rattled off four straight points to claim the set 25-19 and the match, 3-1.

DiFrancesco led the way with 13 kills and 45 attempts followed by Neely's 11 kills and team-leading six total blocks and 16.5 points. Natalie Jaeger and Emily Johnson added 17 and 16 assists respectively. Jaeger also contributed two service aces on the day.

Northwestern State will return to action this weekend when the team heads to Auburn, Ala. for the War Eagle Classic. NSU will play Jacksonville State at 4 p.m. on Friday before taking on Florida A&M at 9:30 a.m. Saturday and host Auburn at 7:30 p.m. Saturday's finale against the Tigers can be seen live on ESPN3.com in conjunction with WatchESPN and the SEC Network Plus.