LAKE CHARLES – With every match Northwestern State gets closer and closer to realizing the full potential of a young team. Each set and each attack move the Lady Demons that much closer to the level of consistency they've been refining across the past couple weeks.
 
That refinement and progress continues on Saturday as the Lady Demons (2-5, 0-5) travel to McNeese (3-4, 3-4) for an 11 a.m. match looking to notch the first Southland Conference win of the season.
 
"We took the aggressive swings that I want us taking and did that for a while," sixth-year head coach Sean Kiracofe said following the 3-1 loss to Central Arkansas on Tuesday. "They just fell an inch or two outside the court early on and we got frustrated after a while and gave them some easy balls."
 
While the errors began to pile up early, 14 total in the first two sets that led to a 2-0 deficit in the match, they were not the same kinds of errors that frustrated Kiracofe earlier in the season. Swings that were once creating balls several feet off the line now were producing balls just inches off the line, swings that will lead to points in the near future. 
 
"It doesn't show up on the scoreboard or in the box score, but those errors were better," Kiracofe said. "The progress was there and now we start turning those just misses into points and things start to change."
 
With the way the NSU defense and block has played through the first seven matches of the season, the Lady Demons have had ample opportunity to take multiple sets from their opponents. An average of 5.8 errors per set has been the biggest challenge to overcome thus far.
 
With two new setters and a handful of new attackers the consistency needs to come from somewhere and, according to Kiracofe, consistency from either position would be just fine. 
 
"It can be either one," Kiracofe said. "We have new people in all those positions so when someone gets that consistency the other will fall into place. It will come. We're working on it. It's just one of those things we're they're all learning on the job right now whereas this was something we would have normally hammered out during the offseason but we're having to do it in season."
 
McNeese enters the match after snapping a four-match losing streak with a sweep of New Orleans earlier in the week.
 
Junior outside Kendall Glueck leads the team in kills with 10 or more kills in five of the seven matches on the year. Averaging 3.78 kills per set is Wichita State transfer Regan Stiawalt, who tallied 35 kills in the first two matches of the season.
 
"They have a new coach and a transfer that gives them a go-to type player," Kiracofe said. "While she hasn't necessarily been the one to lead them in kills, they know they can go to her. She's a constant for them and it gives everyone else a sense of relief knowing she is going to do what she does, and they can try and find ways to score within their roles."