TROY, Alabama – Coming off an imposing performance in a sweep of Alcorn State on Wednesday, the Northwestern State volleyball team heads to Alabama for a three-match tournament beginning Friday.

The Lady Demons (1-3) began the trip before the remnants of Hurricane Harvey approached the Natchitoches area. As the storm dumped flooding rain in Natchitoches, NSU was putting on a clinic of efficiency in Mississippi, hitting .632 in the opening set and .386 overall in the first of two meetings with the Lady Braves. Alcorn will visit Prather on Sept. 28 to complete the home-and-away series.

The record-setting rain that hit the Houston area long was on the minds of the NSU volleyball program, which features five players – Kylie Spencer (Tomball), Emily Ornelas (League City), Alexis Warren (Cyrpess), Victoria Harris (Spring) and Aiyana Bean (Houston) – from the greater Houston area.

"We had a lot of family from Houston and that south Texas area up in Oklahoma this last weekend," third-year head coach Sean Kiracofe said. "There were a lot of conversations about being able to get back home and what kind of condition their houses were in.

"Our thoughts and prayers to all of our family members back there and everybody else that's in the Southland Conference around the Gulf Coast, lower south Texas and along the Louisiana coast as well."

The Troy Invitational features a lineup of teams that will provide a much different look for the Lady Demons compared to Oklahoma's NIKE Invitational a weekend ago.

NSU will open the tournament with two matches on Friday, playing Winthrop (1-3) at noon and Troy (0-4) at 6:30 p.m. They will face Jackson State (1-2) at 1 p.m. on Saturday before returning home.

"We're not going to have to deal with the size disadvantages that we did this last weekend, but we're going to be up against some teams that are used to winning and know how to push towards the end of matches," Kiracofe said.

A season ago, first-year assistant coach Ashley Hardee was just up the road from Troy as the associate head coach at UAB. Hardee will have the opportunity to reconnect with his family as they remained in the Birmingham area during the transition.

"It is always fun just to be able to see family when you're away for a while," Kiracofe said. "We're excited about Ashley being able to see his wife and kids and I know they're excited about it."

Live stats and video will be available for all matches at the tournament this weekend through the tournament central page at http://www.troytrojans.com/sports/2017/8/28/2017-troy-invitational.aspx. Updates for all NSU matches will also be posted live on Twitter @NSUdemonsVB.