NATCHITOCHES – As the volleyball season nears its conclusion, the theme for Northwestern State continues to be growth and consistency.
 
After a road weekend and a pair of sweeps, the Lady Demons (9-16, 3-7) begin the final stretch of matches with three of the final four in Prather Coliseum, looking for more of both of those things to close the season.
 
With the potential still there to grab the four seed in the Southland Conference tournament, NSU takes on UIW (10-16, 5-6), who prior to a pair of wins this past week had lost four straight league matches.
 
First serve is set for 6:30 p.m. with live video and stat links available at www.nsudemons.com or on the NSU Athletics Mobile App, a free download in either the Apple or Google stores.
 
Admission to all NSU volleyball home matches is free to the public, but fans are required to adhere to the university's clear bag policy to enter the arena. Masks are still encouraged to worn while inside Prather Coliseum.
 
"A lot can be done in this short amount of time that we have left in the season," head coach Sean Kiracofe said. "We can still get the fourth spot in the tournament and to do that we've got to find that consistency and execute in moments and at the end of sets. A big match to determine where we land in the tournament is Thursday."
 
In the first meeting over a month ago, the Lady Demons dominated at times on the net with seven blocks to just two from the Cardinals and had a chance to take the first set with a late run that would have given them a big lift on the road. The Cardinals took the opener 26-24, however, and finished the match in straight sets.
 
This time NSU hopes to draw on a level of comfortability in game plan thanks to similar tactics they saw just this past weekend in Lake Charles.
 
"They (UIW) are similar in ways to McNeese in that they're running a 6-2 the majority of the time with some big right sides and some big middles," Kiracofe said. "We were able to present something different to McNeese that hopefully will feel more comfortable on Thursday and puts us in a better position to execute more."
 
The Cardinals had a season-low two blocks against the Lady Demons in the first match. Since then they have produced 10 or more blocks five times and have the third and fourth best blockers per set in conference play.
 
Their recent success around the net has been a complement to the outside pin, namely senior Bethany Clapp. She leads the team by a significant margin in both kills and kills per set but has only reached double figures once in the past two weeks. Her pair of 20-kill matches in the two weeks prior, however, shows her explosive potential.
 
"If we can create the situations that we want to, like we did in that first match against HBU, it really doesn't matter if she gets 20 plus," Kiracofe said. "It's that everyone else doesn't really get a chance to be involved. 
 
"Where we are finding trouble is being passive enough to allow the other team to run what they want to run and it's really hard to defend. Us being aggressive in bad situations and aggressive in serving so that they have limited offensive options, puts us in a position where we can have advantages. That's something we have to do on a consistent basis."