CAPE GIRARDEAU, Missouri  -- The Northwestern State volleyball team's final two-match day of the regular season went much better than their first.
 
The Lady Demons (3-2) grabbed a pair of victories in the Redhawks Invitational at Southeast Missouri State, putting themselves in position to go unbeaten in a three-match tournament for the first time since the 2012 UT Arlington Hilton Invitational.

The two victories came one week after Northwestern State dropped both its matches at Texas Tech's Red Raider Classic.
 
Northwestern State 3, Radford 1
 
As most coaches usually do, Sean Kiracofe usually can find something for his Northwestern State volleyball team to do better.
 
Following Friday's 3-1 (25-22, 25-23, 17-25, 25-19) win against Radford, Kiracofe was at a loss.
 
"I think that's an easy yes," he said about whether his team's performance was the best in his four seasons at the helm of the program. "I always find some points in the match where we could have been better, but everything was really good. Radford is a really good, solid team that has a lot of tradition and success. To be able to play at that level against them really says a lot."
 
The Lady Demons collected their second straight victory with a balanced offense that saw three players tally double-figure kill totals, each doing so efficiently.
 
Reagan Rogers paced Northwestern State's offense with 15 kills, hitting .204 on 49 attempts. Madeline Drake (12 kills) and Alexis Warren (10 kills) were even more efficient, hitting a combined .347 on 49 attempts.
 
All of that led to NSU posting its second-highest team hitting percentage (.244) of the early season.
 
"We did everything well honestly," Kiracofe said. "We produced on the outside with Reagan and Alexis. The middles were good. Hannah was good on the right. There really wasn't a phase of the game we didn't excel in, which is great to say."
 
After a tight first-set victory, the Lady Demons relied on their defense in the second set, holding the Highlanders (3-1) to an .059 hitting percentage in the set. Tied at 23, Warren delivered a tie-breaking kill before Radford's Stephanie Neast 's error gave NSU a 2-0 lead.
 
Radford answered with a stronger third set before Northwestern State used three blocks in the final set to regain control and close out the match.
 
"Radford is a really good team," Kiracofe said. "They were a little more high error in sets one and two than they normally are. In set three, they didn't give us any free points. I thought at that point it was going to be a long match, but we settled down, controlled our side and controlled the rest of the match in set four."
 
 
Northwestern State 3, ULM 2
 
The rivalry match lived up to what is expected of such a meeting.
 
After a sluggish first set, the Lady Demons responded with two overpowering performances before the Warhawks (2-3) forced the fifth set. An 8-1 fifth-set surge netted Northwestern State its first five-set win of the season and put itself in position to claim its first outright tournament title under Kiracofe.
 
"We came out and didn't take care of things in the first set," Kiracofe said. "We turned around in two and three and had a purpose behind everything we did. That showed in the scores. You have to hand it to Monroe. They didn't give up in the fourth. They earned a lot of points. We were happy to get to the fifth and get things going our way to get out of there with a win."
 
After committing 10 errors in a 25-17 loss in the first set, the Lady Demons committed just six in the next two sets combined, grabbing double-figure wins (25-12, 25-14) to assume control of the match.
 
For the second time in as many matches Friday, the Lady Demons had three players deliver double-figure kill matches.
 
Reagan Rogers rung up a season-high 21 kills while hitting .370. It was Rogers' sixth 20-kill match of her career, and she added 10 digs for her second double-double of the day. Rogers had 11 digs to go along with her 15 kills in the win against Radford.
 
"She keeps asking for more sets, which is great and we're happy about that," Kiracofe said of Rogers, who had the second-most total attempts (1,354) in school single-season history in 2017. "The best part of that is she's had those efficient matches, but we haven't had to depend on her. We can go back to her when we want to. We're very comfortable spreading the offense around. Whenever we go to Reagan, we can pretty much count on getting something to go our way."
 
Both Madeline Drake and Hannah Brister tallied 14 kills to join Rogers in the double-figure club. Drake hit .458, knocking down her 14 kills on just 24 attempts while committing just three errors.
 
She added one block assist and three block solos, which increased her career total to 195, pushing her into fourth in school career history.
 
"She had a great offensive day today," Kiracofe said. "She's improving every time we go out on the block and putting herself in position to touch a lot of balls. I'm happy for her to move up in the ranks, and I think she'll continue to do that all season."
 
Northwestern State will face tournament host Southeast Missouri State at 2 p.m. Saturday in the tournament finale.