Box Score 1 | Box Score 2 COLUMBIA, Mo. – For the second straight Friday, Northwestern State spilt its pair of matches to open weekend play.

The Lady Demons opened with an impressive 3-0 (25-9, 25-17, 26-24) sweep of Missouri State before falling to former Southland Conference foe Abilene Christian 3-1 (25-19, 14-25, 25-18, 25-17) later in the day.

NSU finishes its weekend at the Mizzou Invitational on Saturday at 12:30 against Missouri. The match can be seen on SEC Network+ through the Watch ESPN app.

The development of the young Lady Demons took another big step in the first match of the day against a talented Missouri State team. Despite the early start time of 10 a.m., NSU stormed out of the gate with a dominating 25-9 win of set one.

NSU hit a match-best .345 with just three errors to start the match and scored nine unanswered points to finish the set off.

"Something we talked about before and after our match last Saturday was if we can keep a team that has size advantages off of the net then it negates those advantages," head coach Sean Kiracofe said. "In sets one and two we did just that. We kept them out of system and off the net and then turned those opportunities into points more efficiently than we did last weekend."

That impressive efficiency on the offensive side was led by sophomore Breanna Burrell who had seven kills with no errors through the first two sets. She had six of those kills on nine total swings in the second set as the Lady Demons hit .241 in the second set helping NSU to a commanding 2-0 lead overall.

Early on in the third Missouri State was able to quell the errors that decimated it through the first wo sets. The Bears took the early lead and after NSU battled back to tie the score at seven, jumped back on top with a 7-1 giving them their largest lead of the match.

The 7-1 run was the first of alternating five-plus point swings leading into the dramatic third-set ending. The Lady Demons erased the deficit with a 6-0 thanks to a pair of kills from Symone Wesley and a pair of MSU errors. The Bears went back ahead with a 5-0 run immediately after.

By the end of the third set Burrell's offensive execution from earlier in the match had transferred directly to Addison McDermott. After just three kills on five total swings in the first two sets, the senior totaled six kills on nine swings in the third, four of which coming in the final 11 points of the match.

It was McDermott's kill that prevented MSU from getting its first set point, making the score 23-21 and setting NSU off on the final, match-winning 6-1 run. Aces from Amina Attra and Olivia Stanley during the run fueled the momentum that secured the sweep.

"The third set is what I'm most proud of seeing them do," Kiracofe said. "Missouri State stopped giving us as many unforced errors, so being able to come back from being down late and earn points is a great achievement for this team."

Offensive efficiency was the name of the game in the second match of the day as well, but it was the Wildcats that were slightly more effective.

After splitting the first two sets with NSU smashing a .421 clip with just two errors to take the most one-sided game of the match 25-14, the Lady Demons struggled to keep pace with the Wildcat tempo the rest of the day.

"It came down to a style match up problem," Kiracofe said. "ACU is the fastest offense that we have seen this year. We adjusted to it initially in the second set, but their adjustment was to go faster.

"Normally if a team does that it would result in errors, but they were able to minimize that. Overall, we fought throughout the match, and it was good experience for that style of play.

Despite a .364 attack percentage, the second best of any set in either match on the day for NSU, it was ACU's blistering .609 performance in the third that helped it win the pivotal frame, spring boarding to the 3-1 final.