LAKE CHARLES – Northwestern State travels to McNeese on Saturday looking to turn the tables following a loss on Thursday and a loss to the Cowgirls earlier this month.
 
The Lady Demons (9-15, 3-6) fell victim to a motivated Houston Baptist team on Thursday who avenged the straight-set loss from earlier in the month with a sweep of its own. NSU is looking to do that same thing on Saturday against a surging McNeese (12-9, 6-4) team.
 
First serve is scheduled for 1 p.m. with live coverage links available at www.nsudemons.com.
 
Unable to slow down the big swings at the pins in the first meeting, the Lady Demons will look for a better result at the net contesting those swings and better swings on their side to force McNeese out of system. 
 
The focus remains on Breanna Burrell and Symone Wesley as NSU's primary offensive weapons and the targets for opposing defenses. Burrell recorded her fourth straight double-digit kill match on Thursday and the fifth one in the past six.
 
HBU did a better job against Wesley holding her under 10 kills for the first time in five matches, but she had 15 kills and a .355 hitting percentage against McNeese the first time around.
 
The challenge for NSU once again lies in the one day turnaround between matches as the Lady Demons hope a second time through the same order of opponents produces a different Saturday result.
 
"Even from when we played them last, they've been changing around their lineup to see what's going to work best for them," head coach Sean Kiracofe said. "That in itself is going to provide some different challenges. 
 
"One of the changes was going with an outside that is a little bit bigger presence at the net and that has worked for them in a couple of matches. They made a change at libero as well so we may see something different from the first match just because they're experimenting."
 
While the shuffling of players may have been the case in recent weeks, the lineup the Cowgirls presented against Southeastern on Thursday made a strong case to be the final one.
 
A dominant 3-0 sweep of the Lady Lions produced the Cowgirls' season-best .418 attack percentage, the highest mark by any Southland Conference team this season by 20 points. It was their third win in the last four matches and moved McNeese into a third-place tie in the conference standings with two weeks remaining in the season.
 
They were paced by freshman standout Aryn Johnson who had 14 kills with a .545 hitting percentage. Johnson had 17 kills with a .371 hitting percentage in the first meeting against NSU earlier this month.