NACOGDOCHES, Texas – The Northwestern State volleyball team got the start it was looking for Saturday afternoon at Stephen F. Austin.
 
Coming off a tough, five-set loss at Sam Houston State on Thursday, the Lady Demons came out with a quick offensive burst against the Ladyjacks.
 
NSU was unable to maintain the start, however, and fell to Stephen F. Austin, 3-0 (25-21, 25-14, 25-18), in Southland Conference action.
 
Northwestern State (11-15, 6-5) dropped its third straight match, hitting .085 in the process. The Lady Demons knocked down five of their first 10 attempts in the match but were just 28 of 108 the rest of the match.
 
Stephen F. Austin (14-8, 7-2) played a part in that as the Ladyjacks notched 11 blocks. Justice Walker led the SFA block with one block solo and six block assists.
 
"They started to collapse in our middles, but while we were still passing well, Abby (Gardea) was doing a great job taking advantage of those open looks," second-year coach Sean Kiracofe said. "We struggled passing in serve receive Thursday as well, but it was a different type of serve. I felt we should have handled the serves we saw today against SFA better than we did. I will just chalk it up to seeing a different look."
 
Abby Gardea and Kourtney Seaton combined to record NSU's lone block of the match.
 
Kourtney Seaton paced NSU with eight kills, tying Justice Walker for match-high honors. Five of Seaton's kills came in the first set when NSU built a pair of five-point leads (7-2, 15-10) before Stephen F. Austin rallied.
 
SFA used another big run, this one a seven-pointer, to take a big lead early in set two and cruise to the victory.
 
In the third set, the teams traded the first 20 points of the match and NSU was within 14-13 before an 8-2 spurt allowed the Ladyjacks to take control of the clinching set.
 
Defensively, Channing Burleson delivered her third straight 20-dig match, hitting the number evenly to tie Lexus Cain for match-high honors. Burleson ranked third nationally in total digs before the match and her 476 digs rank fifth in school single-season history.
 
The 20 digs are Burleson's second-highest total for a three-set match, trailing the 26 she posted against Tennessee Tech on Sept. 3.
 
"I know the numbers haven't been the same as the beginning of the season for Channing, but outside of a few exceptions of her moving around too much on defense, she has always been solid for us," Kiracofe said.
 
Northwestern State returns to action Thursday when it hosts Abilene Christian at 6 p.m. in the annual "Dig Pink" match, which is part of #ForkCancer week on the NSU campus.