TULSA, Oklahoma – At the end of Friday's second set, the Northwestern State volleyball team appeared poised to take the momentum from state rival Louisiana Tech in the opening match of the Tulsa Volleyball Invitational.
 
However, a match-long struggle with consistency kept the Lady Demons from doing so, allowing the Lady Techsters to grab a 3-1 victory (25-20, 23-25, 19-25, 19-25) at the Reynolds Center.
 
"We struggled to find consistency this match," second-year head coach Sean Kiracofe said. "There were times we looked pretty good and forced Louisiana Tech to make adjustments. Then there were too many times we made the game easy for them."
 
After dropping the opening set to a Louisiana team for the third time in as many matches this season, NSU (5-8) responded by eking out a second-set win by scoring the final three points of the set. A tandem block by Natalie Jaeger and Madeline Drake, who was playing in her hometown, sealed the set
 
Louisiana Tech (7-5) took a quick lead in the third set and led wire-to-wire, stealing back the momentum.
 
The early portion of the fourth set proved to be much tighter with neither team building more than a two-point advantage until the Lady Techsters used a pair of NSU errors to go up 14-11. From there, Louisiana Tech methodically pulled away for the clinching 25-19 victory.
 
"Louisiana Tech has some size that is difficult to match up with if we allowed them to stay in system, and that's what we did today," Kiracofe said. "During those runs where we played at a high level, we were able to negate that size advantage. Being able to do that consistently just wasn't there."
 
Alexis Warren paced Northwestern State's offense with 18 kills, tying her career high.
 
Before teaming with Drake on the clinching block in the second set, Jaeger became the seventh player in school history to reach 2,000 career assists. Jaeger set Abby Gardea for a set-tying kill (8-8) that propelled the Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, native into the 2,000-assist club. Jaeger finished with 31 assists and has 2,016 for her career.
 
Channing Burleson collected 22 digs, marking the third time in the past five matches she has reached the 20-dig mark.
 
Northwestern State concludes play in the Tulsa Volleyball Invitational with a pair of matches Saturday. NSU opens against host Tulsa at 11 a.m. and will play former Southland Conference rival Oral Roberts at 4 p.m. at the Reynolds Center.