NATCHITOCHES – Wednesday night's Purple and White scrimmage did not quite live up to the expectations for Northwestern State head coach Sean Kiracofe. 
 
But that was a good thing – sort of.
 
After such high levels of competition throughout the first week of practice from the Lady Demons, the hope was for the first performance "under the lights" to spark another level. While that didn't quite happen on Wednesday, Kiracofe is fully aware of the grit and fight his team possesses.
 
"There were good things, and this sounds worse than I mean it to, but I was a little disappointed," he said. "A little just because I know what the previous week looked like and I think with as many new people as we have there were some nerves and we did not show what we are fully capable of.
 
"The silver lining is what we saw tonight, we have so much more. It's a good thing and a bad thing, but I wish it would have shown itself in these four sets."
 
Although the results were a bit inconsistent throughout the night, the big attacking swings came on a relatively regular basis from the usual suspects of preseason All-Southland players Breanna Burrell and Symone Wesley, both finishing the night with double-digit kills.
 
A pair of freshmen left their marks on the offensive stat line during the night as well. Madisynne McQueen impressed with some heavy swings of her own, especially later in the evening, and Reaghan Thompson, who played both in the middle and on the right side, totaled 14 kills in the first three sets.
 
"We're so much bigger and more physical across the board offensively," Kiracofe said. "The kills that we're seeing in practice didn't necessarily come tonight but they're there and I think they are going to present themselves more and more as we continue."
 
From a defensive perspective the performance in the middle and on the back row, like the offense, had it's on spurts of quality and inconsistency.
 
Another freshman, Jordan Gamble, collected five kills from the middle with four blocks on the night but transfer Riley Daniel tallied seven across the four sets to lead the way, continuing the growth and effort from a Spring semester at NSU where she was the only middle on the roster.
 
"We've got four middles that can do a great job blocking," Kiracofe said. "I thought La'Treva (Kennedy) did a great job but really want to stress how well Riley did. She learns during sets and got in situations where she was able to take things away and we didn't necessarily set away from that or adjust as attackers so bravo to her."
 
Moments and things to learn and grow from all evening long, which for a team with eight new players still learning each other's tendencies on the floor was a little to be expected. Even if the bar had been set so high from the first day and week of practice.
 
The Lady Demons will take what they learned on Wednesday and look to make their first adjustment on Saturday as they travel to former Southland-rival Stephen F. Austin for the lone exhibition match of the fall, looking to begin solidifying a starting seven for the season opener a week later.
 
"We haven't had this kind of depth and physical talent in a couple of years," Kiracofe said. "We can throw a different lineup out there every single time so we have to just settle on something so they can get used to who's on the right and left of them and who's doing this or that.
 
"That doesn't necessarily mean that's going to be the starting lineup on the first weekend. But we have to settle on something and let them get used to each other so the little errors that I didn't like seeing tonight start to go away because you have the familiarity with who's out there with you."