LAKE CHARLES – Basketball in March takes on a different feeling and amplifies each possession and each shot, especially late in games. As Northwestern State enters the Southland Conference Tournament on Monday it hopes the clutch shots and performances it has seen the past month take hold once again.
 
The Lady Demons (11-17, 7-11) take on Texas A&M-Commerce in the tournament-opening game starting at 11 a.m. from the Legacy Center on the McNeese campus. The game will be broadcast on ESPN+ with free streaming audio also available at www.nsudemons.com.
 
NSU split its two games against the Lions (12-18, 10-8) thanks to some of those clutch moments and shots that it will look to find once again on Monday morning.
 
After a flurry of free throws down the stretch of the first half from Candice Parramore, nine coming in the final few minutes of the second quarter, the Demons closed an 11-point gap by the half time buzzer. A 5-for-10 effort from beyond the arc in the third quarter gave NSU an 11-point lead but needed some key buckets down the stretch of the fourth quarter to hold off a late Commerce surge to pick up the win.
 
Jiselle Woodson made a late driving layup that helped secure the win, reminiscent of her game-winning shot to beat Lamar two weeks prior. Joelle Johnson also made key shots to stave off the Lion scoring runs. 
 
"It's going to come down to those big possessions, all-out effort and those 50/50 balls," head coach Anna Nimz said. "We were able to watch a lot of effort plays where we had success and that's often the different between winning and losing. We're going to have to have those plays because Commerce is a very good team and are used to playing in these kind of pressure, big game situations."
 
The clutch moments in the Commerce win, two weeks after the winner against Lamar, were just the precursor to NSU's game of the year to this point, the 82-81 overtime win against New Orleans.
 
Four Kelsey Thaxton free throws with 3.5 seconds left in the game sent the game to overtime and after falling behind by seven mid way through the extra period she drained a 3-pointer to start a 7-0 NSU run that setup the game-winning buzzer-beater from Alecia Whyte with 0.4 seconds left on the clock.
 
"In all those games I think we really started to exude some poise and composure down the stretch," Nimz said. "You could easily see that they were playing for one another and this time of the year you have to do all those things. 
 
"We don't want to over excite this one, it's still the next game. We're 0-0 and headed into a completely different season. We want the excitement of being in the tournament but don't put any added pressure on one individual game."
 
First-team all-conference guard Candice Parramore scored a career-high 26 points in the win over Commerce, half coming from her 13-for-15 performance at the free throw line, and got eight or more point from four of her teammates.
 
The Lady Demons have performed their best this season when the offensive contributions have come from multiple sources and will without question need it once again in Lake Charles. 
 
"We have to come out and play the way that we know we can," Nimz said. "I believe in the girls and When we're playing 40 minutes of quality basketball that they can beat anybody."