HAMMOND – In the opening match of the Southland Conference Tournament, Northwestern State did the same thing it has done all season long, excel under pressure.
 
After falling behind two sets to none, the Lady Demons (18-12, 10-8) found their offensive flow, starting in the middle with freshmen Reaghan Thompson and Jordan Gamble, to complete the reverse sweep of UIW 3-2 (22-25, 19-25, 25-20, 25-20, 15-12).
 
The win advances NSU to the quarter finals of the conference tournament where they will face No. 4 seed Texas A&M-Corpus Christi on Friday afternoon at 2 p.m.
 
"Getting to the fifth we just automatically believed that we were going to win," head coach Sean Kiracofe said. "It wasn't easy getting there but once we got to the break before the fifth, they were already saying this match is ours."
 
The Lady Demons called a timeout after falling behind 10-8 in the final set. Out of the break it was freshmen Madisynne McQueen and Jordan Gamble that scored on back-to-back swings to tie the match at 10 and set the Demons off on the final push they needed to advance.
 
A pair of Cardinal errors and a Symone Wesley kill gave the Demons the 13-11 edge and after another UIW error, Breanna Burrell buried her 10^th kill of the match into the middle of the floor to send NSU to the next round.
 
Burrell was one of two Demons to reach double figures in the match, along with Reaghan Thompson, and one of six Demons with six or more kills on the day.
 
The NSU comeback began in the middle with the play of Gamble and Thompson, both offensively and defensively.
 
After a combined five kills and two blocks in the first two sets, the freshmen middles began taking over the match in the third set. They combined for seven kills with no errors in the 25-20 third-set win that kept the match alive for the Demons, got the offense into a rhythm and opened things up at the pins all at the same time.
 
With the offense back to its expected flow, the defense asserted its dominance in the fourth set. Seven of the 13 total blocks in the match came in the fourth set with Gamble in on five alone in the frame. 
 
Two blocks came in the first four NSU points of the set and Gamble connected with McQueen and Wesley in a crucial 4-0 run late, that also included a rejection from McQueen and Thompson, that gave NSU the 23-17 lead they closed out a few serves later.
 
Once the final point of the fourth went to the Purple and White, the familiar territory of the fifth set in a place where they had already won two other five-set matches this year.
 
The Cardinals were able to recapture their high-efficiency attack early in the set, helping them to the 10-8 lead, but two critical attack errors and another setting miscue proved too costly in the end.
 
"We talked about UIW being high error at times and if they showed up playing efficiently then it would be a difficult day," Kiracofe said. "They did exactly that. So UIW played extremely well throughout the first two sets. It took us a while to settle down and to stop giving them so many unearned points."
 
Thompson led NSU with 12 kills and a .500 attack percentage while Gamble finished with six kills on 14 error free swings with a match-best eight blocks.
 
She joined Thompson as the second freshman to ever record 100 blocks in a season, giving NSU two players with 100 blocks in the same season for the first time in program history.