NATCHITOCHES – Northwestern State's Southland Conference volleyball opener against McNeese State on Thursday followed what has been a recent pattern – a solid start followed by two tough sets.
 
After nearly scoring a comeback victory in the first set, NSU succumbed to the Cowgirls, who rode that momentum to a 3-0 sweep of the hosts in front of a crowd of 367 inside Prather Coliseum on Dig Pink night.
 
"Any time we were able to do something well, we found a way to negate that in a bunch of different ways," first-year coach Sean Kiracofe said. "There's a lot of things we can work on, but a lot it was bad choices, bad plays and bad control of the ball. We constantly talk about making the ball better for the next person who touches it, and we did not do that tonight."
   
Northwestern State (2-12, 0-1) trailed 23-18 in the opening set after a kill by McNeese State's Hailee Showers. After an Amanda Kunz kill put the ball in Lauren Agan's hands, the junior responded by serving off four straight points to tie the game at 23.
 
After a service error gave the Cowgirls (4-10, 1-0) a 24-23 lead, Reagan Rogers evened things with a kill before Malina Sanchez delivered consecutive kills to claim the set for McNeese.
 
McNeese built on that momentum, taking the second set, 25-14, before Northwestern State, which wore pink jerseys that were auctioned off after the match, put together a stronger third set before falling 25-17.
 
Sanchez led a balanced McNeese State offense with 10 kills, while the Cowgirls' defense made the difference in the second set, posting a 93 percent sideout percentage, effectively keeping Northwestern State from stringing together a scoring run.
 
"Losing the first set isn't a big problem," Kiracofe said. "Being down early in a set is not a problem. We've been able to find ways to fight our way back. For some reason, we haven't been able to carry that into the next couple of sets in the last few matches we've played."
 
Agan led NSU with 10 kills, hitting .280 in the process and collecting 11.5 of Northwestern State's 37 points.
 
"She had a good night," Kiracofe said. "She was the only one who really showed up for us on the stat sheet. She got a big chunk of our points. Our middles have been successful all year, and we weren't able to use them as much as we'd like (tonight). While Lauren did a good job for us and got a lot of kills, we probably asked a little bit too much of her tonight."
 
NSU returns to action Saturday at noon when it hosts Nicholls in the second of a three-match homestand.