NATCHITOCHES – At the end of every regular season, every match takes on greater and greater significance.
 
That certainly holds true for Northwestern State, for the fourth straight time, as it enters the final match looking to position itself the best possible way entering next week's Southland Conference Tournament.
 
The Lady Demons (16-12, 9-8) host Texas A&M-Commerce (10-21, 6-11) at 1 p.m. on Saturday afternoon with a chance to secure the five seed in the conference tournament. The match will air live on ESPN+ with live stat links available at www.nsudemons.com. There is no charge for admission for any home volleyball match at NSU.
 
Since last Thursday, NSU has basically controlled its own fate in the race for the fifth seed. Back-to-back wins against New Orleans, the team they are battling with for the spot, gave the Lady Demons the crucial head-to-head tiebreaker.
 
A win on Saturday, regardless of the outcome of the UNO/HCU match in New Orleans, puts NSU into the fifth spot against the No. 8 seed UIW. Commerce is locked into the seven spot in the tournament, regardless of the result in Natchitoches, with seeds one through six all up for grabs on the final day.
 
More confirmation as to the competitive nature of Southland volleyball in 2022.
 
"You want to win out and feel even better about going into the conference tournament," head coach Sean Kiracofe said. "We did not play well at Commerce last time and there were definitely some things that I felt we could have done differently in the moment and played better. So, there's that retribution there for us as well."
 
NSU has won three straight matches entering the finale while Commerce has dropped their last four in a row but took HCU to five sets on Thursday.
 
With former Demon greats like Hannah Brister, Megan Lohmiller and Ariane Damasio, amond others, scheduled to be in attendance on alumni weekend, there is no better time or opportunity for this year's Demons to rise to the occasion and live out this season's battle cry – Protect What You Earn.
 
NSU used one of its most balanced offensive attacks of the season to pick up the win against UIW on Thursday. Six different players finished the match with eight or more kills, led by Reaghan Thompson's 12 and Addison McDermott's 11.
 
McDermott also turned in her first double-double of the season with another 20-dig performance on her senior night.
 
NSU is looking to finish the season with four straight wins and in turn carry a wealth of momentum into the most important part of the season.
 
With everything at stake, it still comes down to who can execute in crunch time, the place where the Demons have excelled this year, evidenced by the eight wins in 11 five-set matches this season.
 
"They (Commerce) have struggled the last few matches," Kiracofe said. "So just like it was with UIW on Thursday it's which team is going to show up. 
 
"Is it the team that ran a clinic of fundamental volleyball against us when we played them there or the one that is giving up too many easy points against teams that last few matches? Either way we have to come out, be consistent in our passing like we have been most of the past few weeks and stay consistent across the board."