BEAUMONT, Texas – Northwestern State started fast as usual, capturing the doubles point, and the middle of the singles lineup efficiently closed out Friday's quarterfinal match with sixth-seeded Central Arkansas, advancing the No. 3-seeded Lady Demons to Saturday's semifinal round of the Southland Conference Women's Tennis Tournament.
 
NSU's 4-0 victory Friday sets up a Saturday 11 a.m. meeting with seventh-seeded New Orleans (15-10), an upset 4-3 winner Friday afternoon over No. 2 Stephen F. Austin, one of the regular-season co-champions in the league. A semifinal win would advance the Lady Demons (14-8) into the tournament finals for a third straight year and for the fifth time in six years.
 
Straight-set singles wins by Polina Ivanova, Natalya Krutova and Aliona Ladutska followed NSU's usual doubles point triumph, and ended the season for UCA (9-8), which made its first Southland Tournament appearance.
 
"I am proud of all our girls the way they competed today," said first-year Lady Demons coach Olga Bazhanova. "Their process were good and they played smart."
 
The unbeaten-against-Southland-foes No. 1 doubles combination of Tatiana Larina and Krutova prevailed 8-3 over UCA's All-Southland standout Nataly Yoo and Cassidy Crawford  and Kateryna Piatakova and Ivanova quickly finished their 8-5 win at No. 2 to lock up the doubles point.
 
Ivanova polished off Allison Murphy 6-3, 6-1 at No. 4, Krutova subdued Kelsey Williams 6-2, 6-3 in the No. 2 match, and Ladutska scored a 6-2, 6-1 decision at No. 3 over Kristina Horsikyan to end the match.
 
NSU had a hard-fought 4-3 win at UNO three weeks ago in the regular-season matchup. A third-set 6-4 win by Ladutska made the difference for the Lady Demons on April 3.

Match results - NSU 4, UCA 0