NATCHITOCHES—Ela Iwaniuk and Rhea Verma lead the Northwestern State Lady Demon tennis team into a Saturday 11 a.m. match against Central Arkansas at the Jack Fisher Tennis Complex in a contest which features two of the three unbeaten teams in Southland Conference play.

The Lady Demons (9-2 overall, 3-0 Southland Conference) are hoping to get off to a 4-0 start in league play for the second straight year. It will be a stern test Saturday.

UCA (9-5, 3-0) is playing its third consecutive road match, after knocking off New Orleans and Nicholls last weekend. The Bears won last year's meeting 4-3 in Conway, Ark, and have won two in a row over the Lady Demons.

"Central Arkansas is a very good team and very well coached," NSU head coach Patric DuBois said. "We have had very good matches against them the last few years and we expect nothing different on Saturday. It will be a very tough match."

Verma and Iwaniuk are each 3-0 in conference play following their triumphs last Sunday at New Orleans. Iwaniuk has yet to lose a set in conference play, winning the last five in comfortable fashion, not surrendering more than two points in any of those sets.

"Ela works really hard and moves really well," DuBois said. "She plays a really solid game and tries to make as few mistakes as possible, so she makes it real difficult on her opponents.

"That's what we all do and try to do, and she has executed it at a high level so far."

Polina Mutel and Maria Skyba, the top two singles players in NSU's rotation, got off the schneid a bit with wins at UNO.

Following her defeat against Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, sophomore Patrycja Polanska has bounced back in a big way, winning her last two in straight sets. Junior Judit Castillo Gargallo is 8-2 overall, including 7-1 in the No. 6 spot.

The Lady Demons have won all three doubles points so far in conference play, and have lost just one doubles match, going 8-1. The pairing of Castillo Gargallo and Emilija Dancetovic has lost just one match all year and are undefeated in SLC play. The No.  1 duo of Mutel and Skyba is also undefeated in conference play and is coming off a pair of 6-3 victories over tandems from Nicholls and New Orleans.

"I think as conference play has gone along, we all have gotten our rhythm and been able to play really aggressive," Verma said.

Just like the Lady Demons, the Bears have also not lost a doubles point yet in conference play. In singles, UCA's back half of the rotation with Marli Van Heerden, Yada Vasupongchai and Rada Manataweewat are a combined 9-0, while the Lady Demons' Nos. 4-6 of Polanska, Iwaniuk and Castillo Gargallo are a combined 7-2 in SLC action.

"Our key is to minimize unforced errors," DuBois said. "We want to make each match as difficult as we can for our opponents. We want to have our strengths be the force we use in order to dictate matches."

Next weekend, the Lady Demons have four matches in three days. NSU plays at home against Louisiana Tech next Thursday and hosts Lamar and Prairie View A&M next Friday (March 22) before rounding out the weekend with a visit to SMU that Sunday.