NATCHITOCHES – For three-and-a-half sets Saturday afternoon, the Northwestern State volleyball team looked like its usual self
 
After a slow start, the Lady Demons grabbed the second and third sets and had a seven-point lead on Southeastern Louisiana in the fourth set. There was one thing missing from NSU's arsenal, a knockout punch.
 
The visiting Lions rallied to win the fourth set in extra points and grabbed the decisive fifth set to take a 3-2 (25-19, 20-25, 20-25, 27-25, 15-12) victory from Northwestern State at Prather Coliseum.
 
"I wish I could put my finger on what changed," second-year coach Sean Kiracofe said. "I thought we were going to be able to push through. It was something we talked about in one of the first timeouts of that set, to really work hard in the next seven points and we didn't do it. We let them get back in it and believe they had a chance. We made a great effort to push the fourth set into extra points, but at that point, you're leaving it up to a coin flip."
 
The fifth set was back and forth early with neither team gaining much of an advantage. Southeastern Louisiana (4-16, 3-4) led 12-10 before a service error pulled Northwestern State (11-13, 6-3) within a point.
 
Channing Burleson dropped a short serve in that appeared headed for an ace, but Madi Odom made a diving stab and the ball backspun over the net and found a hole in the NSU defense to re-establish SLU's two-point advantage and swing the momentum to the Lions' side.
 
"Up until the middle of the fourth set, we were making things happen for ourselves and things were going our way because we were working for it," Kiracofe said. "The second half of the fourth, they started playing better and believing. In the fifth they carried that over. That play sums it up.
 
"We hadn't had Channing serve short all match. It was perfect timing. We should have been able to put that down for an easy point even if it wasn't an ace. We just let it drop."
 
The final result obscured a career-high 22 kills from freshman Alexis Warren, who added 18 digs for her fifth straight double-double. Regan Rogers added a personal conference season-best 11 kills off the bench, hitting .375 on the match. Madeline Drake gave NSU a third double-figure attacker, knocking down 10 kills against just two errors.
 
Burleson added 20 digs giving her 436 on the season and moving her into sixth place on NSU's single-season list.
 
Landry Bullock paced Southeastern with 21 kills while Odom equaled Burleson for match-high honors with 20 digs.
 
Northwestern State returns to action Thursday when it travels to Sam Houston State for a 6:30 p.m. matchup. The match with the Bearkats starts a two-match road swing that concludes Oct. 22 at Stephen F. Austin.