NATCHITOCHES—The fall season could not have started much better for the Northwestern State women's tennis team.

Four Lady Demons advanced to their draw's finals and two doubles teams won their first match on the first day of the Natchitoches Women's Care Lady Demon Invitational.

"We competed well today," first-year head coach Marcos Morelli said. "The coaching staff is very happy with how the team fought in singles and doubles. Having four girls in the singles finals is a great way to start the first tournament of the season.

"The way the Lady Demons performed today is proof of how hard we have been practicing."

Two of those NSU athletes will even face each other in Saturday's finals, Sofi Garcia and Sara Erenda.

Competing in her first event at NSU, Erenda made her presence felt by breezing into the orange singles draw finals with victories against Southern Miss' Gabriella Danielsson (6-2, 6-2) and Tyler Junior College's Stephanie Gopar (6-0, 6-1).

Garcia held her opponents to zero games won in three of the four sets in two straight-sets wins, shutting out TJC's Emma Besi 6-0, 6-0, before defeating TJC's Beyza Yaniklar 6-3, 6-0, to advance to the draw finals against her teammate.

The duo wasn't done there, either, as they paired up to dispatch USM's Danielsson and Angelina Blinova 6-1 to advance to the second round of the purple doubles draw.

Tjasa Klevisar fought through difficult singles matches in each of the first two rounds to reach the purple singles draw finals. In the first round, she squeezed past Southeastern Louisiana's Kate Oborina 7-5, 6-4, before beating TJC's Candy Wei 7-5, 6-3, to make the finals.

There, she will meet USM's Lim Sze Xuan, who narrowly defeated NSU's Ayu Ishibashi. After dropping the first set 7-5, Ishibashi forced a super tiebreaker with a dominant 6-0 second set triumph. In the tiebreaker, Ishibashi fought back from a 7-3 deficit to knot the tiebreaker up before Xuan came away with a 13-11 win.

Klevisar also won in doubles with her partner, freshman Maria Farina, as the duo rolled to a 6-1 victory against SLU's Boglarka Csordas and Alba Perez in the four-team round robin.

Like Erenda, Honoka Umeda reached her singles draw finals in her first competition at NSU. Her path to the finals was a bit more bumpy, however, as she needed to win a super tiebreaker in each of the first rounds to advance to the draw's finals.

Umeda won her first set in round one 6-2 against SLU's Claudia Di Leonardo before dropping the second set 7-6, including the tiebreaker 7-5. The Lady Demons freshman bounced back to capture the tiebreaker 10-6.

The freshman dropped the first set 6-3 against TJC's Natalia Michta in the second round, but rebounded with an impressive 6-0 second set win. In her second consecutive super tiebreaker, she advanced to the finals with a 10-6 triumph.

In Saturday's finals, she will face Blinova, as she aims to continue an impressive debut.

The tournament finishes Saturday, beginning with the final round of singles at 10 a.m., followed by the final two rounds of doubles.