NATCHITOCHES – The Northwestern State volleyball team suffered an anguishing loss at home for the first time of the season Tuesday night, dropping a back-and-forth, five-set match to Southland Conference foe Houston Baptist 3-2 (25-20, 24-26, 25-23, 16-25, 15-9).
Third-year head coach
Sean Kiracofe was disappointed with the loss, hoping for the team to close out a tight match.
"Our big deal is that we're not happy with just making it close anymore," Kiracofe said. "We had a lot of opportunities that we kind of let pass by. I think it was well within our capabilities to win it, but it didn't happen that way."
The Lady Demons (10-13, 5-3) outhit the Huskies (16-6, 8-2) in the match, but 33 attack errors along with 17 errors in serve receive sealed the match.
Outside hitters
Reagan Rogers and
Hannah Brister continued to be consistent forces in the NSU attacking scheme. With 23 kills and 21 digs, Rogers recorded her first 20-20 match of the season and her eighth double-double.
Brister contributed another 16 kills while hitting .250 to keep the Lady Demons in the match.
NSU's most efficient hitter of the night and the season was once again middle blocker
Madeline Drake. Drake hit .280 en route to nine kills. She is hitting .321 in SLC matches, ninth-best in the league.
Outside of Rogers, Brister and Drake, the Lady Demons struggled to avoid hitting errors. Outside of the trio of Rogers, Brister and Drake, NSU hit -.119, and no other Lady Demons hit for a positive percentage.
"We can't just depend on a couple (players) to expect to beat the top teams in the conference – you just can't do it," Kiracofe said. "We had a couple people that didn't show up today, at least on a consistent basis, and we had some good performances.
"Against the top teams in the conference, everyone's got to provide some sort of value. It doesn't always have to be kills, or blocks, or whatever it is, but it's got to be something. We relied a little bit too much on a few people, and then it got predictable towards the end, and they made some good defensive plays and that's what kind of ended things in the fifth."
Part of the Lady Demons struggles resulted from a tall and talented Huskies front line. HBU set the tone early, blocking four shots in the opening set.
HBU opened the match on a 13-3 run, with three points coming from blocks. Following an NSU timeout, the Lady Demons showed signs of life, fighting back to cut the deficit to four at 22-18. The Huskies eventually took the set, 25-20.
NSU went down fighting, winning in extra points in the second set and rolling to a 25-16 fourth set to force the 15-point tiebreaker. The Lady Demons defense blocked three attacks and held Houston Baptist to a -.023 hitting percentage in the fourth set.
Libero
Channing Burleson played a major role in keeping the Huskies to a .074 hitting percentage for the match. Burleson, the Lady Demons fourth all-time career dig leader dug the ball a career-high 32 times.
The Lady Demons have to rebound quickly as the team travels to square off against New Orleans on Thursday and Southeastern Louisiana on Saturday.
"We've got to keep going out and winning matches," Kiracofe said. "And then when we're in opportunities like this to be able to take matches from the top teams in the conference and take big jumps in the standings, we've got to do it. Like I said earlier, it's just not about being close anymore."
Live updates from both matches will be posted on Twitter @NSUDemonsVB.
