CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas – Northwestern State makes its first of two trips in two weeks to the island on Thursday as it embarks on the final weekend of the regular season and heads into the conference tournament.
 
After a pair of frustratingly close losses to two teams ranked in the top four of the Southland Conference this past week, the Demons (13-14, 9-7) face the team ranked second in the league in Texas A&M-Corpus Christi on Thursday night, finishing off one of the toughest three-match stretches of the season.
 
The match will air on ESPN+ with first serve set for 6:30 p.m.
 
Against those two teams, HCU and McNeese, this past week who are a combined 24-8 in conference play this year, the Demons showed once again just how close they are to breaking into that upper echelon of the Southland Conference.
 
Two of the three sets against HCU were decided by the two-point minimum, with one extending beyond the 30-point mark, with the other set decided by three points. NSU took a 2-0 lead on McNeese before the Cowgirls' fought their way back to win the match in five, handing the Demons another tough loss.
 
"We say this within matches and outside of them to not let the end result of a point dictate your mental state," head coach Sean Kiracofe said. "You are the one that gets to choose that going forward into the next point or the next set or the next match. We're doing great things, but it's just not going our way in the end right now. We're playing with the absolute best in the conference so it's maintaining that mindset that you can beat anybody, because we absolutely can, and go out there and keep fighting away."
 
Defense has been a big part of the Demons' ability to put them in position for success against the top of the conference and helped them excel against everyone else.
 
Far and away the best blocking team in the league, putting up 2.7 blocks per set as a team, the 11^th best rate in the country with the nation's best individual performer Reaghan Thompson, who currently leads the country with 146, the front line of the Demon defense is just the tip of the iceberg on how good that side of the ball has been this year.
 
"We are better at every single statistical category than we were last year and we felt really good about how we finished that season," Kiracofe said. "We're way better in blocking and noticeably better in digs because the defense is absolutely stepping up. The back row has had to step up because of the changes we've had to make on the front line and they have done that. Symone (Wesley) and Teresa (Garza) are both putting up really good defensive numbers for outsides and then Ashlyn (Svoboda) has been phenomenal sort of leading the way."
 
Svoboda added her name to the very short and very impressive list of player to record consecutive 400-dig seasons this past week, with the chance to make it back-to-back 500-dig years before its all said and done. The other two names on that list are Channing Burleson and Keelie Arneson, who hold the top two career dig totals in school history and five of the top six single season marks.
 
She is flanked and supported by a pair of outside hitters that are putting up equally as impressive defensive numbers through their six-rotations.
 
Wesley is averaging 2.80 digs per set this year, third best on the team, and Garza is at 3.39 per set overall, the eighth best rate in the conference and the best average by a non-libero in the Southland. Her 3.37 rate against conference opponents sits just outside the top 10.
 
The block and the back row will, as they have been all season, be essential for the Demons as if faces the top offensive team in the conference in the Islanders.
 
Corpus has the most efficient offense in the conference, hitting nearly .300 as a team and averaging 15.38 kills per set, both tops in the Southland. Junior outside Kyndal Payne leads the league with a 4.22 kill per set average while middle Leah Stolfus has a conference-best .414 hitting percentage.
 
"It's a similar thing that we talked about leading into McNeese," Kiracofe said. "It's about the speed at which they can produce and try and be able to get the ball back on you aggressively in transition and in serve receive as well. There are going to be plenty of times where there will be single blocks or big splits in the block and it is that back row defender against the attacker. In order to maintain that speed though, sometimes it can limit where attackers can hit the ball. But it comes down to that back row defender against the attacker and who's going to win."
 
Both Payne and Stolfus had 20 kills in the five-set win for the Islanders in Natchitoches earlier this year.