TULSA, Oklahoma – Down a set to Oral Roberts on Saturday, the Northwestern State volleyball team responded with one of its best stretches of the season.
 
Thanks to a stellar start to the fourth set, NSU forced a decisive fifth set before falling to the Golden Eagles, 3-2 (22-25, 25-17, 25-17, 24-26, 15-13), in its finale of the Tulsa Volleyball Invitational.
 
Trailing by a set, the Lady Demons (5-10) blitzed Oral Roberts with a 10-0 run to start the fourth set and hung on in extra points to force NSU's second five-set match of the season.
 
NSU nearly completed a fifth-set rally before suffering its first five-set defeat of the season. Down 14-11, the Lady Demons backed up a Golden Eagles error with a Channing Burleson ace before Laura Milos delivered her 27^th and final kill of the match to seal the win.
 
"It was a good day as a whole, and I feel it put us on the right track for conference play," second-year head coach Sean Kiracofe said. "Today we got back parts of our game that were just not there or we could not execute consistently (Friday)."
 
Lauren Agan paced the NSU offense with 12 kills while Kourtney Seaton produced the first double-figure kill match of her career with 10 kills while hitting .471 for the match.
 
Defensively, Burleson paced four Lady Demons with double-figure dig totals with 22.
 
In the opener, NSU enjoyed success in the middle sets, but Tulsa (9-1) bookended the match with twin 25-15 triumphs to grab the victory.
 
In between, the Lady Demons pushed the Golden Hurricane to twin 25-22 scores in the second and third sets with NSU using a 7-0 run in the middle of the set to spark its lone set victory of the match.
 
"Both Tulsa and ORU had pin attackers who were very versatile, which made our defense work," Kiracofe said. "Our offense made improvements and earned points in difficult situations. Those were things I wanted to see as we start Southland Conference play."
 
Freshman Alexis Warren produced her second straight double-double, delivering a team-leading 10 kills and tying for the team lead with 18 digs against Tulsa. Five NSU players reached double figures in digs against Tulsa, including a career-high 12 from Kathryn Wristen, who also handed out 26 assists.
 
The Lady Demons return to action Thursday night at McNeese in the Southland Conference opener for both teams. First serve is set for 7 p.m. in Lake Charles.