CONWAY, Arkansas – The Northwestern State volleyball team's third match of the season against Sam Houston State started a little differently than the previous two.
 
Unfortunately for the Lady Demons, Friday afternoon's first-round Southland Conference Tournament match against the Bearkats ended the same way as the two previous ones with Sam Houston State earning a 3-1 (25-16, 20-25, 25-19, 25-15) victory at the Farris Center.
 
After dropping the first set for the first time in the teams' three meetings this season, Northwestern State (12-20) went back to basics to grab a second-set victory and even the match.
 
"There wasn't much of a change in the second set outside of execution of easy balls Sam Houston was giving us," second-year coach Sean Kiracofe said. "In the first set, we were able to force Sam into giving us freeballs and passive swings that should have turned into easy points. In the second set, we put those balls away."
 
After hitting a solid .250 in the opening set, Northwestern State upped its hitting percentage to .320 in the second set. Reagan Rogers and Kourtney Seaton combined for seven of NSU's 12 kills during the match, committing only one error between them.
 
The Lady Demons were able to take advantage of seven Sam Houston State (17-13) errors in the set, limiting the Bearkats to an .040 hitting percentage in order to even the match.
 
Northwestern State's defense tallied five blocks in the second set and 10.5 on the match, easily outdistancing Sam Houston's three team blocks.
 
However, the Bearkats were able to find other alleys in the NSU defense. In the final two sets, the Bearkats hit .306 and .343 respectively.
 
Rogers paced Northwestern State's offense with 14 kills while Seaton (seven kills) set a season high with seven block assists, equaling her season high for total blocks.
 
Senior setter Natalie Jaeger, an honorable mention All-Southland selection, handed out 23 assists, finishing the season with 1,054 (4^th in school single-season history) and her career with 2,694 (4^th in school history).
 
Sophomore libero Channing Burleson, another honorable mention All-SLC pick, added 13 digs to her season total, finishing with 572, the third-most in school single-season history.
 
Seaton's seven block assists gave her 89 on the season, the third-highest single-season total at Northwestern State. Fellow freshman Alexis Warren had 1,160 total attacks, the sixth-most in school single-season history.
 
With the exception of Jaeger, all of the above return, giving Kiracofe hope the future remains even brighter for Northwestern State, which won five more matches than it did in the 2015 season.
 
"I am very proud of the team for what we have been able to accomplish this season and feel that we took some big steps forward," Kiracofe said. "Things really started to come together earlier in the season than we expected, but that just shows how close we are. We hate to see the seniors go with all they have done for this program, but those feelings are matched by our optimism when we think about everyone we have coming back for the next few seasons."