BEAUMONT, Texas – Offensive efficiency from a number of sources and a mid-match blocking adjustment propelled Northwestern State to a 3-1 (25-20, 12-25, 25-22, 25-21) Southland Conference win at Lamar on Thursday night.

"Road wins are always my favorite," head coach Sean Kiracofe said. "To go onto someone else's court with the crowd against you is just a different level of satisfaction when you can play well enough to come away with a win."

The Lady Demons (8-5, 1-1) had three players collect five more kills in the match with just one error between them. The 23 kills and combined .431 attack percentage of Symone Wesley (10-1-22), Jordan Gamble (8-0-15) and Reaghan Thompson (5-0-14) was enough offense to counter a pair of Lamar heavy hitters swing for swing.

In a hotly contested first set with 13 tie scores and five lead changes, the most of any of the four sets on the night, a late 5-0 run was more than enough to provide NSU the breathing room it needed to take the early match advantage. Gamble secured to set with a kill and an ace to give the Lady Demons the closer-than-the-final-score-appeared win 25-20.

NSU was able to pull out the set thanks to some Cardinal errors down the stretch from Kaitlyn Gil, one of the two outsides along with Paige Dugan, that gave the Demons fits all night.

Dugan had 14 kills in the first two sets, with just two errors, on route to her match-leading 25 kills on the night. The duo carried the Cardinals to an easy second-set win, but during the intermission before the third set NSU made the adjustment that paid dividends the rest of the match.

"Dugan and Gil came out and had really good matches, and for a time were scoring whenever they wanted," Kiracofe said. "I was really proud of our defense and block for stepping up like they did to slow them down."

NSU had three blocks combined in the first two sets of the match, it had three in the third set alone as Breanna Burrell and Thompson set the tone early with a block on the third point of the set. It was Burrell's solo block and ensuing kill later in the set that gave NSU the winning points to take a 2-1 match lead.

After being gifted the first five points of the fourth set with five Cardinal errors on the first five serves, the more than appreciative Lady Demons took the gift and ran with it to a commanding 22-10 lead.

The Cardinal gained some momentum with a pair of kills and block, using the home crowd for even more encouragement to turn a runaway NSU win into a much more tense final few points. The 10-1 Cardinal run made it a 23-20 match, but a service error provided NSU with match point and Wesley provided the winner on her 10^th kill of the night.

Outside of the second-set struggles, NSU had a .245 attack percentage in the other three sets, which would rank as the third highest in a match this season.

Wesley earned her team-leading seventh double-double of the season with the match-winning kill (10 kills, 19 digs), and Burrell followed her 15-kill match on Tuesday with a team-best 16 against Lamar.

"We knew coming into the match that Lamar was an aggressive serving team," Kiracofe said. "At different times that made us struggle but when we controlled the ball we did a great job running an offense and taking good swings. We had a list of players with really high hitting percentages tonight."