HAMMOND – With two regular season matches left on the schedule, Northwestern State has entered a playoff-like atmosphere with plenty of tournament implications riding on the final two results.
 
With the four-seed and accompanying first-round bye in the tournament still up for grabs, the Lady Demons (10-17, 4-8) travel to Southeastern (8-17, 6-7) on Thursday looking to check the first box on the road to a top-four regular season finish.
 
Thursday's match is set for 6:30 p.m. and will be broadcast on ESPN+. Links for live coverage from Hammond are available at www.nsudemons.com or on the NSU Athletics mobile app, a free download in either the Apple or Google stores.
 
The Lady Demons fought for a five-set win a week ago against UIW and despite a sweep at the hands of top-seeded Texas A&M-Corpus Christi two days later, are playing more consistent volleyball on a more regular basis.
 
With two critical matches ahead this week head coach Sean Kiracofe believe his team is playing solidly at a opportune time.
 
"In a perfect world we would have been able to ride the high of a five-set win against UIW into this week if we'd had that match on Saturday instead of Thursday," he said. "It doesn't change anything from a big picture standpoint that we are playing better, we're more consistent and we're able to score in different ways. Going into these next two matches this week I think we're in a good spot."
 
Outside hitters Breanna Burrell and Symone Wesley continue to be the offensive force that make the Lady Demons click with a combined 255 kills in Southland Conference play. Both went for double figures in each match a week ago with just 15 combined errors on over 150 swings in the two matches.
 
Although her play has been steady the majority of the season, Jaylibeth Garcia-Rosa has provided an equally as consistent option in the middle of late. Her 15-kill, one-error, six-block match against UIW was instrumental in the win.
 
The first time NSU faced Southeastern was the first match of the conference schedule where the Lady Demons were still searching for a steady attack. Now that one has emerged and continues to progress, the timing of a key rematch with the Lady Lions could not be better.
 
After starting the conference season at 5-2, Southeastern has scuffled of late losing five of its last six and four straight entering Thursday.
 
"They've done a couple of different things recently and since we saw them at the beginning of the conference schedule," Kiracofe said. "They've been in a 6-2 the past couple of matches but at the same time you still have (Cicily) Hidalgo on the outside where the majority of their offense is going to run through and Crispin (Adams) in the middle. So there are some similarities to that first match but there are some differences we're going to have to approach. 
 
A win on Thursday would lock the Lady Demons into at least a six seed in next week's tournament. A UIW loss to Corpus on Thursday night and another NSU win on Saturday against Nicholls would create a three-team tie for the fourth spot, with all three teams having split the season series against each other.