KATY, Texas -- As the sun – remember that glowing orb? – settled beautifully over the Merrell Center Saturday evening, appropriately painting the sky shades of purple and orange, all was picture perfect for the Northwestern State Lady Demon basketball team.

For the second straight year, the young ladies who give their all for their coaching couple, Brooke and Scott Stoehr, are one win away from slipping on dancing shoes.

They've been here before. All but freshmen Tia Youngblood (nine points, seven rebounds, three blocks), Sami Thomas and Ndey Sonko (both with brief but impactful time in Saturday's 70-64 overtime triumph over Lamar) were showered with confetti after NSU pounded arch-rival Stephen F. Austin for the Southland Conference Tournament championship last March.

When in Katy, WIN in Katy. That's all this group really knows, going 6-0 at the Merrell Center since catching fire coming down the stretch of the 2013-14 season in a 21-win campaign that carried NSU to its first NCAA Tournament appearance in a decade.

That team rolled into the conference tournament skipping along on a four-game win streak, after pounding a pretty good Central Arkansas squad and the Southland's 2012 NCAA Tournament entry, Oral Roberts, by a combined 54 points in its last two games.

This team came in confidently too, but for little readily apparent reason.

These Lady Demons had won just three of their last 10 games, losing the last two before a first-round tournament pairing with a grind-it-out UCA club.

The last loss, last Saturday at home to UNO, was especially sobering, although this year's Privateers bore little residuals from a winless squad in 2013-14.

Losing to UNO at home was one thing. Losing a lead late was completely uncharacteristic of the Lady Demons under the Stoehrs, and with Janelle Perez steering the ship at point guard.

If there's been one trademark characteristic instilled since day one of the Stoehrs' stay, it's been competitive toughness. The first workout for the team with their new coaches, in spring 2012, Brooke wasn't at all pleased with how her new players were running through a drill. So she stepped in and ran the drill the way it should have been done.

She was seven months pregnant.

A tone was set. And it hasn't faded, not even facing a daunting task of winning four games in four days to get back to the Big Dance next weekend.

"I'll be honest, I was down, and our whole team was down, after losing last Saturday," said Brooke Stoehr. "We had to regroup, and we talked about doing the same thing earlier this year when we were 5-7 after our non-conference season. Heading into our conference season, we had to be good at rebounding margin, holding down turnovers and getting to the free throw line and shooting about 70 percent. We went 7-1 in the next eight games."

The Stoehrs break down each season into three segments – non-conference, Southland games, and postseason, which starts and can finish in Katy.

"We said, 'OK, we're 0-0 now, we had a pretty good start to our last season, so let's go 4-0 to start this postseason,' and I thought our team really responded to that," she said.

Clensed by their coach's confidence, and realizing they'd made last March's charge through Katy as the No. 4 seed, hardly the favorite, the Lady Demons lit up.

"Coach Brooke made a great point before the tournament started. Everybody's 0-0," recalled sophomore Beatrice Attura, who had a career game Saturday with 26 points, drilling decisive shots down the stretch as NSU evaporated a 14-point deficit, forced overtime, and won.  

"We took that mentality, and honestly, we took it one possession at a time, one game at a time, minute at a time, one media timeout at a time. That's what we were able to do," said Attura, "and when we reach pressure situations, we're pretty good there."

Perez – described as "a great player … their engine" by Lamar coach Robin Harmony after a typically marvelous 24-point performance that included six rebounds by somebody who is not tall enough to ride many rides at Six Flags over Texas – said the confidence was rooted in experience and togetherness.

"We had the belief going into the tournament we were going to make a run. From last year, the experience of grinding and going through the process, and being here again, you have to get through that one game, that one possession, and hold on to each other and tell each other to keep going," said the dynamic El Pasoan. "It's amazing. We all sacrifice for each other, and that's what keeps us going strong."

Now they have one more step left. Confetti will cascade down Sunday afternoon on either NSU, the tournament's No. 6 seed, or an even more unlikely candidate, eighth-seeded Houston Baptist, who has mounted its own epic campaign in Katy.

Stoehr believes her team has what it takes.

"They've been very good about taking one game at a time, focusing on what we had to do," she said, "and I don't have any doubt we'll do that tomorrow."

Which certainly seemed beyond the realm of possibility just a week ago.