THIBODAUX-- After opening the Southland Conference season last Friday with a 4-3 win over three-time defending champion Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, Northwestern State's Lady Demon tennis team plays road matches Friday against Nicholls and Sunday at New Orleans.

The match at Nicholls will take place at 1 p.m. Friday, while the UNO-NSU battle will be starting at 11 a.m. Sunday.

The Lady Demons (7-2 overall, 1-0 Southland Conference) have won seven of their last eight, including the conference-opening win against perennial SLC powerhouse Texas A&M-CC.

Down 3-2, NSU came back to claim the final two singles contests to win the match. Redshirt freshman Rhea Verma came from a set down to win the final two to tie it up at 3-3 before junior Judit Castillo Gargallo earned a three-set victory to clinch the match.

"Rhea's opponent came out on fire," head coach Patric DuBois said. "But she didn't flinch. She won the first game (in set two), which is big for her. She went up 4-1 and then held on in the second and was able to win the third. Rhea didn't get flustered at all. She just stayed the course and it worked for her."

After the thrilling triumph to clinch it, Castillo Gargallo improved to 7-1 overall in singles, which is the best mark on the team. She and partner Emilija Dancetovic are 7-1 in doubles, which is tied with Verma and Patrycja Polanska for the best on the team.

Verma is 6-3 overall, and 6-1 combined at the No. 2 and 3 spots, and has won six of her last seven matches since dropping the first two of college career.

Junior Ela Iwaniuk won the second point for the Lady Demons against AMCC, defeating Myu Kageyama 7-6 (7-3), 6-2. Improving her record to 6-2, it was her sixth triumph in seven matches.

The first doubles point was registered by Polina Mutel and Maria Skyba, who have won three of their last four matches after losing the first one of the year together at Tulane.

"It's never easy to have a new doubles partner," Mutel said. "It's never easy to have a new doubles partner and at the beginning we were trying to get to know each other.

"We started a little bit more slowly than we expected, but Maria and I have become a really good doubles team."

New Orleans (7-2, 1-1 SLC) split a pair of 4-3 decisions to open conference play, winning at Stephen F. Austin and falling at Sam Houston State.

The Privateers' strength is their doubles teams. Like NSU, New Orleans also have only lost one doubles point, as it is 8-1 with the only lost point coming to Xavier (New Orleans).

"Doubles is always important," DuBois said. "We have faith in what we do and how we do it. We hope to play well and expect to play well and we'll see how two good teams compete against each other and who gets that point.

Nicholls (2-6, 0-2 SLC) comes in following consecutive 5-2 defeats to Sam Houston State and Stephen F. Austin. The Lady Demons, trying to win their fourth consecutive meeting, won last year's matchup 7-0 in Natchitoches. The Colonels haven't scored a point against NSU since 2016.

NSU returns home March 16 when it plays Central Arkansas at 11 a.m. at the Jack Fisher Tennis Complex.