NATCHITOCHES – Initially Saturday afternoon seemed to be a gloomy one for the Northwestern State volleyball team.
 
The Lady Demons dropped a five-setter to Central Arkansas, 3-2 (22-25, 25-21, 18-25, 25-23, 11-15) at Prather Coliseum, dropping them to .500 in Southland Conference play.
 
After the match, NSU (12-17, 7-7) found out Stephen F. Austin swept Southeastern Louisiana, paving the way for the Lady Demons to return to the Southland Conference Tournament after a one-year absence.
 
"It's not how we wanted to get in, going through the back door, but we'll take it," second-year coach Sean Kiracofe said. "Things looked better for us today against a tough team. We're kind of getting back into where we want to be. We've got some work to do next week to get back into the mind-set we need to have."
 
In a fairly even matchup, Central Arkansas (13-13, 7-7) was slightly more efficient offensively, outhitting NSU .253-.213, which made part of the difference.
 
In the final set, the Sugar Bears hit .417, committing only one error in 17 attacks.
 
After the teams split the first two sets, the Lady Demons hit .086 in the third set, allowing UCA to move into position to end the match in four sets.
 
Down the stretch of the fourth set, Northwestern State seemed to rediscover some of its missing mojo.
 
Trailing 22-20, Reagan Rogers delivered a kill and Bailey Martin followed with an ace to tie the match. Back-to-back errors gave NSU a two-point lead before UCA kept the set alive with a Savanah Allen kill.
 
Victoria Harris sealed the set and forced a decisive fifth-set with a kill, helping NSU to a 25-23 win.
 
UCA quelled Northwestern State's momentum in the final set, jumping to a 7-2 lead. The final point of the Sugar Bears' early run came on a Rayna Jefferis' ace that clipped the top of the net and fell in.
 
It was the second such ace for the Sugar Bears in the match and marked the second time in a five-set match at home where such an ace went against NSU.
 
"We had a couple bad-luck situations like that, but we're not putting ourselves in positions to be able to get those opportunities ourselves in the fifth set," Kiracofe said. "We've done that to come back and get into the fifth set, but then it's a wait-and-see mentality instead of attacking. We'll work on that next week to get into that mind-set of fighting and being hungry."
 
Lauren Agan delivered 14 kills to lead three NSU players in double figures, joining Kourtney Seaton (12) and Madeline Drake (10). Channing Burleson collected a match-high 23 digs, giving her 531 on the season, good for fourth place in NSU single-season history.
 
Samantha Anderson knocked down a match-high 17 kills for Central Arkansas.
 
Northwestern State returns to action Thursday when it hosts Sam Houston State at 7 p.m. in the middle match of season-ending, three-match homestand.