NATCHITOCHES –Northwestern State volleyball will get to do something Saturday that it doesn't often get the chance to do – play at home on Homecoming Saturday.
 
As part of the full day of events Saturday including the annual N-Club Hall of Fame induction ceremony in the morning and an afternoon football game, the Lady Demons (12-9, 5-5) will close the festivities with a 6 p.m. match against Lamar in Prather Coliseum.
 
The match can be seen at www.nsudemons.com/watch or on the NSU Athletics mobile app. There is no cost for admission to any NSU home volleyball match.
 
"It's great for us to be in town for Homecoming because that doesn't always happen, so you want them to be able to experience that," head coach Sean Kiracofe said. "We have to do our best in terms of preparing ourselves like we normally do while still having the chance to enjoy all the festivities so to speak."
 
A win on Saturday night would serve as a perfect ending to a full Homecoming weekend, but also be a much-needed boost for the Demons who lost in straight sets on Thursday and are heading into the toughest remaining portion of the schedule.
 
Following Saturday's match NSU travels to HCU and Texas A&M-Corpus Christi next week before a home match with Southeastern the following week and a home-and-home with New Orleans. Each of those teams represents one of the five spots in the top half of the conference standings.
 
While there are still things Kiracofe would like to clean up and improve upon on the floor, the steady progression the young Demons have made from the beginning of the season has put them in a position to handle the potential Homecoming distractions.
 
"While we keep getting better every day there hasn't been a huge change," Kiracofe said about the progression of the team through the first nine conference matches. "That's a credit to this team, how well they started the year and the work they did during those early practices. 
 
"I could go down the list of stats where we've seen improvements and we're a much more solid team in that respect. There hasn't been any of those drastic kinds of things where we were had to make this huge progression. They came out from day one and had that fight and desire to play for each other."
 
The Lady Demons will look to keep pace in the tightly contested conference race on Saturday against a Lamar (8-13, 2-8) team fresh off a four-set win against Texas A&M-Commerce. The Cardinals used quality defense to keep the Lions off the scoreboard, holding them to just 7.3 kills per set in the three sets Lamar won.
 
Outsides Paige Dugan and Kaitlyn Gil continue to carry the offense for the Cardinals, each averaging better than three kills per set. They represent two of the top 10 kill averages in Southland Conference play with only Lamar and New Orleans having multiple players ranked in the top 10 so far this season.
 
"The record may not necessarily show it but they're much better, like everyone in the Southland," Kiracofe said. "They've got two outsides that can produce, play really good defense and have a good young setter. They can do some things that make it difficult so among all the extracurriculars we have to make sure we're on top of what we're doing."