NATCHITOCHES – The Northwestern State women's basketball team's third straight victory was the epitome of a team victory.
 
From top to bottom, the Lady Demons saw contributions from everyone who touched the court Wednesday night, helping Northwestern State rally from an 11-point third-quarter deficit to knock off Southland Conference rival Nicholls, 66-62, at Prather Coliseum.
 
"We've been talking about three words with our team the last month – energy, effort and concentration," fourth-year co-head coach Brooke Stoehr said. "You may not shoot the ball well, and we didn't tonight, but they kept fighting. We went six minutes without scoring to start the third quarter and still got stops. Three weeks ago, this team would have put its head down and, not quit, but they wouldn't have fought like they did tonight."
 
The six-minute drought to start the second half allowed Nicholls (8-15, 6-7) to stretch its lead to 11 on a corner 3-pointer by Taylor Morrison with 3:15 remaining in the quarter.
 
Undaunted, the Lady Demons (15-10, 9-5) whittled the lead to two at the end of the quarter by scoring the final nine points of the quarter.
 
Beatrice Attura had a 3-pointer and assisted on a Cheyenne Brown jumper in the run, which swung momentum to Northwestern State's side.
 
"It speaks to our resiliency and what we learned from the last time we played them," said Attura, who finished with 14 points and four assists. "A couple of weeks ago, we probably would have given up or put our heads down and dug ourselves a bigger hole. It speaks to how much we've learned and grown as a team.
 
"You don't want to be down by 10 ever, but it's nice when you see that and you can come out it with a win."
 
Nicholls took a three-point halftime lead after knocking down 50 percent of its first-half field goals, including a 5-for-9 performance from 3-point range. In the first meeting, the Colonels sank 14 3-pointers in a 70-61 Jan. 20 victory in Thibodaux.
 
In the second half, Northwestern State turned up its defensive intensity and held Nicholls to an 8-for-31 shooting performance (25.8 percent).
 
From there, the Lady Demons' plus-9 advantage on the boards, including a season-high 21 offensive rebounds, put Northwestern State in position to score the comeback victory.
 
Trailing 56-55 after a Hope Pawlowski 3-pointer, Northwestern State turned a Tia Youngblood offensive rebound into two Attura free throws, taking a lead it would not relinquish.
 
Leading by two with 2:46 to play, a Keisha Lee offensive rebound led to a free throw by Janelle Perez before Perez pulled down perhaps the biggest of the Lady Demons' 21 offensive boards.
 
Clinging to a one-point lead with 34 seconds left, Perez drove the lane and missed a shot but outhustled a pair of Colonels for the offensive rebound.
 
With Nicholls forced to foul, Perez calmly knocked down two free throws with 25 seconds remaining to re-establish a 3-point lead.
 
"I had been struggling shooting from outside, so I went for a layup and I missed it," said Perez, who finished with a game-high 18 points. "Coach always tells us you never know when a big moment is going to happen. We went into tonight focused on pounding the glass, and we did that. We all played together. We were down 11, and we came back. We hadn't done that this year. That shows toughness. We grew up a lot tonight."
 
Perez and Attura were Northwestern State's only double-figure scorers, but freshman Cheyenne Brown added nine points and grabbed 10 rebounds.
 
"There aren't many games where Janelle doesn't shoot the ball well that we're able to win," Stoehr said. "You've seen that over the last month, we've started to have other people step up. Keisha Lee's offensive rebounds down the stretch were huge. She had two really big ones that retained possession.
 
"Gabby Jackson goes in and rebounds the basketball. Libba Gilliam plays seven minutes and has five rebounds. Everybody who went in really did something to impact the game when we didn't play well offensively."
 
Coupled with McNeese State's loss to Central Arkansas on Wednesday, Northwestern State's third straight win puts the Lady Demons in sole possession of third place in the conference standings. With league-leading Abilene Christian ineligible for the conference tournament, the next two finishers are in line for a double bye in next month's tournament in Katy, Texas.
 
Northwestern State returns to action Saturday at 1 p.m. when it hosts New Orleans in the first game of a Southland Conference doubleheader that also features the men's teams from each school.