HAMMOND – The Northwestern State volleyball team completed one comeback Saturday afternoon.
 
Unfortunately, it needed at least two.
 
NSU rallied from a six-point, third-set deficit against Southeastern Louisiana on Saturday but was unable to force a fifth set, falling 3-1 to the Lions in a Southland Conference match.
 
After dropping the first two sets (25-22, 25-17), NSU fell behind 9-3 in the third set before methodically rallying. A 3-0 run gave NSU its first lead of the set at 19-18, and it used another 3-0 run to take control of the set before closing it out, 25-22.
 
"We just came out flat in the first," first-year head coach Sean Kiracofe said. "We didn't play poorly, but we didn't make Southeastern work in the first. The second set wasn't a good representation of how we have played lately and, while we still had to play from behind in the third and fourth, we started competing on every point."
 
The fourth set played out in much the same way. Southeastern Louisiana (10-11, 4-3) broke to a 13-6 lead and maintained a five- or six-point lead until a Glynna Johnson kill pulled NSU to within four at 18-14.
 
Johnson enjoyed a career-high-tying match, collecting 17 kills on 29 attacks, tallying a .529 hitting percentage. It marked the second straight match in which a Northwestern State player tied a career high for kills. Caiti O'Connell equaled her best kill total (16) against New Orleans on Thursday.
 
"Glynna was great again today, and I feel like she can score like that against anyone in the league," Kiracofe said. "The amount of focus a team would have to put in defensively to stop Glynna would make it very easy for our lefts and rights to score."
 
NSU evened things at 22 on Johnson's final kill of the match before the Lions scored the next two points. A solo block by Lauren Agan, who joined Johnson in double-figure kills with 11, kept Northwestern State alive before Parrie Hartley delivered her 14^th kill of the day to secure the 25-23 clinching score.
 
"We showed up for the third and fourth but allowed ourselves to be in a position where a few close calls made the difference at the end of the fourth," Kiracofe said.
 
Northwestern State returns to action Thursday when it travels to Beaumont, Texas, to face Lamar at 7 p.m. Thursday. NSU is in the midst of a four-week, six-match road trip.