NATCHITOCHES – Following its thrilling victory at Lamar, the Northwestern State tennis team returns home for its conference home debut as the Lady Demons welcome Nicholls on Friday and New Orleans on Sunday to the Jack Fisher Tennis Complex.

The contest against Nicholls will be at 1 p.m. and the match against New Orleans will begin at 11 a.m. Pizza will be served to fans at the Nicholls contest, courtesy of Domino's.

NSU (8-4, 1-1) enters having won six of seven matches and its past seven home matches overall, which is the 10^th-longest streak in program history.

Patrycja Polanska is coming off a breathtaking three-set win at Lamar, which clinched the first conference victory for the Lady Demons. At the No. 4 spot in the singles rotation, the junior is 7-3 and has come out on top in five of her last six singles matches.

"I wasn't consistent with what I was supposed to do in the first set," Polanska said regarding her match against Lamar. "In the next two sets, I was trying to be more consistent each game, and it finally started working."

Polanska thrives in big spots after also beating Central Arkansas in 2018 in the same situation and also provided the clinching point in the conference tournament against New Orleans.

"I guess it is just motivation and all my teammates coming to my court and supporting me gives me more motivation to win those clinching points," Polanska said.

At No. 1, Mariella Minetti set up Polanska's clinching point with a three-set victory of her own against Lamar. Minetti, a freshman from Tampere, Finland, has a team-best eight victories this season and has won eight of her last 10 matches.

Ela Iwaniuk bounced back in a big way against Lamar with a straight-sets victory against Bianca Vitale at the No. 2 spot in the rotation. The senior has won four of her past five matches.

At No. 6, Judit Castillo Gargallo has been steady with a 6-3 record and has won four of her last five matches.

Castillo Gargallo, a senior from Teruel, Spain, has 48 career singles victories, which is 16^th in program history. She is just two shy of becoming just the 13^th player in program history to earn 50 singles victories and the first to join the club since Polina Ivanova in 2018.

Dorota Szczygielska has performed well at the No. 3 spot, having won five of her past six, with her lone defeat coming in a tight three-set match at Lamar.

Senior Emilija Dancetovic, along with partner Iwaniuk, paces the Lady Demons in doubles play. Dancetovic has 39 career doubles victories, which is tied for 23^rd all-time with Kim Tollett (1983-85) and Anneline Zerwick (2002-05).

Nicholls (1-8, 0-2) dropped its first two conference matches by a combined 13-1 at home against Sam Houston and Stephen F. Austin. Since beginning the season 1-1, the Colonels have lost seven straight contests.

The Lady Demons have dominated the overall series, triumphing in 28 of 37 matches played, including the previous five. The last time Nicholls won in the series was a 4-0 victory in Natchitoches in 2015, but NSU exacted revenge in the Southland Conference Tournament two weeks later.

Like NSU, Nicholls has four freshmen on its roster with three freshmen playing the top three singles spots.

Nicholls freshman Carla Bouygues is 4-4 on the season, playing primarily at the No. 3 position. She recorded the lone point for the Colonels against Louisiana Tech in the season opener. Fellow freshman Simona Maksimovic won the only point in Nicholls' last match against SFA.

New Orleans (6-1, 1-1) suffered its first setback of the season its last time out against Sam Houston State, a close 4-3 defeat.

Ank Vullings leads the Privateers into Sunday's match at a perfect 7-0 at the No. 1 spot in the rotation. She is coming off a three-set victory against reigning Southland Player of the Year Sahaja Yamalapalli of Sam Houston State, 3-6, 6-4, 6-2.

Mar Gendra also comes in at 7-0, playing at the No. 3 spot in the rotation with six of her seven matches won in straight sets. Five Privateers have at least five singles wins this season.

The Lady Demons return to action next Saturday when they play at Central Arkansas, which marks the beginning of five consecutive matches away from home. NSU returns to Natchitoches on April 3 for a contest against Sam Houston State, which begins the final home weekend of the season.