Box Score LAFAYETTE – Northwestern State dropped its finale at the Sawyer Camillo Invitational to host Louisiana-Lafayette 3-1 (25-19, 19-25, 20-25, 15-25) to finish with a 1-2 record at the tournament.

Set one was back and forth between NSU (3-3) and ULL (7-0) early before the Lady Demons reeled off seven straight points including two service aces by Ashley Elrod to take a 23-16 lead. Moments later, an Amanda Kunz kill put away the Ragin' Cajuns.

"I thought we started out pretty well playing low error volleyball," fifth-year head coach Hugh Hernesman said. "We were serving tough and got ULL in a tough rotation where we were able to make a good run and that was the difference."

Louisiana-Lafayette would battle back, though, taking set two 25-19. After the match was knotted at eight, the Ragin' Cajuns went on a tear building up a six point lead at 16-10 and NSU would never recover. Kills from Kunz and Stacey DiFrancesco brought the lead down to 22-17.

"ULL did a nice job of pressuring us and forcing us into some tough situations in our side out game and their passing improved to the point where their tempo offense was pretty effective," Hernesman said.

The Ragin' Cajuns took the first four points to open set three but the Lady Demons would rally back. NSU took four of five points to tie things at seven on a kill from Elrod. ULL matched NSU and took four points of its own to build up its lead.

An Aubrey Davis kill brought the score 19-17 in favor of ULL but after three points from the home team, NSU was forced to call a timeout trailing 22-18. The Ragin' Cajuns would put things away on a NSU attack error taking set three 25-20 and a 2-1 set lead.

With NSU in a must-have set four, Louisiana-Lafayette worked early to put the set and match out of reach. The Ragin' Cajuns took a 21-11 lead in a hurry. NSU would put together four consecutive points via attack errors from the Ragin' Cajuns followed by a DiFrancesco kill to force the host squad to take a timeout at 21-15.

ULL would score the final four points to take the set 25-15 and the match 3-1.

Mackenzie Neely led NSU with 12 points and 11 kills followed by Kunz with 11 points and nine kills and Elrod with 10 points and seven kills. Emily Johnson led the way with 17 assists and Natalie Jaeger finished with 12. Bailey Martin finished with 14 digs while Jaeger tallied 13.

Aubrey Davis finished with four total blocks followed by Glynna Johnson and Kunz with three each.

"With Keelie (Arneson) out, we decided to go with a strong ball control lineup and I thought Stacey, Ashley and Bailey did a pretty nice job of getting us swings," Hernesman said. "With the different lineup, we just weren't able to get completely into a rhythm offensively."

Northwestern State returns to action next weekend with the Maroon Classic from Starkville, Miss. NSU will play South Alabama on Friday at 1 p.m., Memphis on Saturday at 1 p.m. and host Mississippi State in the finale at 7 p.m.

"We've now got some things to work on and polish up this upcoming week," Hernesman said. "That's the best thing about playing good competition. We get some weaknesses exposed early so that we can be prepared for conference season."