NATCHITOCHES – Northwestern State started quickly Saturday afternoon in its regular-season volleyball finale.
 
Then it fell into a pattern that played into what visiting Sam Houston State wanted.
 
After taking the first set, the Lady Demons were unable to maintain the momentum and fell to the Bearkats 3-1 (25-23, 16-25, 19-25, 9-25) in a Southland Conference match at Prather Coliseum.
 
"It came down to consistency," second-year coach Sean Kiracofe said. "In the second and third sets, we just got in our own way. We let them have leads. When we settled down, we got it close again or tied it up. Then we made a few more mistakes. They did some good things to maintain that lead in the second and third. I felt it was really us and our mistakes. In the fourth, they rolled through and were very consistent and we were not."
 
Northwestern State (12-19, 7-9) dropped its third straight match but secured a rematch with the Bearkats (16-13, 10-6) in next week's Southland Conference Tournament. NSU will be the No. 6 seed while Sam Houston nabbed the No. 3 seed.
 
The Lady Demons played their best set to start the match.
 
NSU hit .282 in the first set, knocking down 19 kills to hold off a late Bearkats rally. Back-to-back kills by middle blockers Kourtney Seaton and Madeline Drake gave the Lady Demons a 24-20 lead before Sam Houston responded with three straight points.
 
Facing the prospect of a tie match, freshman Alexis Warren dropped a deft touch shot over the Bearkats block to give NSU the first set.
 
The second and third sets followed the same pattern – Sam Houston built an early lead before Northwestern State recovered to tighten things up in the middle of the set. The Bearkats pulled away late in each set before using a big early run to put away the fourth set.
 
"We were consistently hitting to the same spot," Kiracofe said. "Whether that was the attackers' decision or the set they had to hit, we just hit to the same spot. Defensively, they had to plant themselves and dig it, and they did. Our attackers didn't move the ball around. Offensively, we didn't run an offense to be able to give those attackers the options to change where they were hitting on a consistent basis."
 
Reagan Rogers posted her second double-double in as many starts, notching a team-leading 11 kills and 10 digs. Senior setter Natalie Jaeger, in her final home match, had 38 assists and 10 digs. Jaeger's seventh assist of the match made her the eighth NSU player to hit 1,000 assists in a season. With 1,031 assists, Jaeger sits in seventh place on NSU's single-season list.
 
The Lady Demons and Bearkats will learn the start time for Friday's SLC Tournament match when the bracket is finalized.