HUNTSVILLE, Texas – The Northwestern State volleyball team fashioned several late-set comebacks Thursday night.
 
The Lady Demons completed one comeback, going into extra points to force a decisive fifth set. Unfortunately for Northwestern State, it could not put together one final comeback, falling to Sam Houston State 3-2 (25-13, 20-25, 23-25, 26-24, 10-15) at the Health and Kinesiology Center.
 
NSU (11-14, 6-4 Southland Conference) blitzed the Bearkats (10-11, 4-4) early, hitting a stellar .588 in the opening set. Madeline Drake paced NSU early with five kills on seven attacks.
 
Defensively, NSU limited the Bearkats to a -.086 hitting percentage in the opening set.
 
"In the first set, we executed the game plan really well, passed well and all the crazy plays or long rallies went our way," second-year coach Sean Kiracofe said. "More importantly, we were very consistent in the first set. From the second set on, we had some big ups and downs."
 
The Lady Demons could not maintain the early momentum dropping the second set and seeing an early third-set lead evaporate.
 
After NSU rallied to tie the third set at 16, Sam Houston answered with a 5-2 run. NSU pulled within one at 23-22 on a Bearkats error and 24-23 on a Kourtney Seaton kill before Taylor Cunningham (18 kills) ended the set.
 
In three matches against Northwestern State, Cunningham has averaged better than 14 kills per match.
 
The Lady Demons were in position to answer in the fourth set, jumping to a 17-12 lead before Sam Houston answered with a 5-0 run to tie the set.
 
That was part of a surge that eventually propelled the Bearkats to a 23-20 lead before the Lady Demons rediscovered that consistency and finished the set with a 6-1 run. Kourtney Seaton completed the run with a kill that pushed NSU to five sets for the third time in its past four matches.
 
The fifth set played out in much the same way, minus an NSU finishing kick.
 
Sam Houston scored 11 of the first 14 points before NSU eventually cut the lead to four. The short set did not allow the Lady Demons enough time to mount one final closing rally.
 
"Part of (the inconsistency) was due to Sam Houston's serving getting more consistent, which was giving us some trouble," Kiracofe said. "It really came down to several slow starts. When we settled down, we were able to go on some steady runs and catch back up. We just put ourselves in a position to need to come from behind too often in a road match."
Alexis Warren led NSU with 15 kills and added 18 digs for her sixth straight double-double. Channing Burleson notched 20 digs for the second straight match and has 456 on the season, moving her into fifth place on NSU's single-season list.
 
Northwestern State returns to action Saturday when it travels to Stephen F. Austin. First serve is set for 1 p.m.