NATCHITOCHES – The Northwestern State volleyball team was successful in its first home court defense of the season, sweeping Alcorn State 3-0 (25-13, 25-9, 25-11) on Thursday afternoon.

Thanks to the attendance of upwards of 300 students from the NSU Elementary Lab School as well as other NSU athletics teams and fans, Prather Coliseum had an extra level of noise during the match.

With the win, the Lady Demons (6-11) have swept Alcorn (2-23) twice this season.

"You always feel better after you win," third-year head coach Sean Kiracofe said. "To get a win under our belt after we played SFA is always good going to UCA. It's going to be a tough conference match. They always have a great environment over there – that gym is loud. We played well up there last year, and we're hoping to repeat that."

Since the 2015 season, the Northwestern State women's basketball program has invited the NSU E-Lab School to attend a day game and the trend is now permeating to other NSU athletic events.

"It was loud and it was a great environment," Kiracofe said. "It's fun. It's something that women's basketball has done for the last couple years. We were lucky enough that Alcorn agreed to come in and play an early match so we could get them over here.

"We're thankful for the elementary lab school to come over and do this for us, and I hope that they had fun, but we definitely enjoyed it."

The Lady Demons (6-11) dominated on both offense and defense in the match. NSU servers recorded 13 aces, the team's second-highest total this year, and hit .368, also the second-highest number on the season.

Outside hitter Reagan Rogers recorded a career-high five aces in just two sets Thursday. Her previous high was three against Sam Houston State in the team's 2016 regular season finale.

Freshman Hannah Brister led the way for NSU on offense. She recorded nine kills in 19 attempts, hitting .421.

"We passed well," Kiracofe Said. "We kept them out of system with our serve, so we got at times some easier balls coming back over to us. That's always going to end up showing up on the stats for all of our offensive players."

Defensively, the Lady Demons held Alcorn to a -.121 hitting percentage, the lowest opponent hitting percentage this season.

"We spread it out a little bit and got some other people involved that haven't had a lot of playing time this year, which is good," Kiracofe said. "The defense was good except for I thought we could have made some better plays on the ball, so that we could run a little more offense and get some variety. With that said, the attackers made it work. Kat (Wristen) and Charli (Fouts) came in and set a good game. We were pretty efficient today."

Every member on the NSU roster received playing time in Thursday's match, a first this season for the Lady Demons.

"I feel like our team chemistry was really there today," Brister said. "The energy was there. I think the crowd really helped with that – the kids, they were great. I feel we really executed well with what they gave us."

The Lady Demons have a day off before traveling to face Southland Conference foe Central Arkansas on Saturday. The team will be looking for a repeat performance from a season ago, when the Lady Demons swept UCA on the road.