HOUSTON – Northwestern State held two-plus point leads late in two different sets against one of the consistent contenders for the Southland Conference title on their home floor. Winning on the road is difficult and it was HCU that produced late rallies to escape with a 3-0 (25-21, 25-19, 25-23) win on Saturday afternoon.
 
The Demons (8-9, 4-2) out blocked the Huskies on the day 12-8, a return to the high-level production at the net that was missing in Thursday's five-set win over Lamar. They also had higher hitting percentages than HCU in two of the three sets, but it was the home edge that prevailed for the Huskies, closing out those sets with 8-1 and 6-3 runs to complete the sweep.
 
"Objectively if you're thinking about what you want to accomplish against a team that won the regular season championships last year, anyone will be happy with splitting the series 1-1 home and away," head coach Sean Kiracofe said. "We played well enough today to still expect to do that. 
 
"We had late leads in the first and third but missed a couple assignments and came up short in some long rallies. We're competing at the same level with the best teams in the conference. Now we need to close those matches out."
 
NSU came out on a mission to establish their elite blocking presence and did that in spades through the first half of the first set.
 
A total of five blocks in the first 15 points for the Demons gave them the three-point lead at the media timeout. But even with the dominance at the net, the Huskies were still within striking distance at 15-13, just like both teams were throughout the entirety of the match.
 
NSU's seventh block of the first set, a solo stop from Symone Wesley, put the Demons ahead 18-14, the largest lead of the set. From that point forward the Huskies did not commit a single error and scored seven kills as part of a larger 11-3 run that spanned the final serves to give them the 25-21 set win.
 
HCU remained in solid control of the second set from start to finish, keeping the Demons at arm's length the entire way, stopping every NSU run at one or two points, keeping the momentum on their side of the floor.
 
The Demons engineered a late push on kills from Teresa Garza and Wesley to pull within a pair at 20-18, but as they did the entire set, the Huskies answered and closed things on a 5-1 run to move ahead two sets to none.
 
Play went back and forth throughout the final set with a total of seven lead changes and 16 instances of a tie score, the latest coming on a Tessa Gerwig kill that evened the score at 21. There was only one unforced error between the two teams as they raced to 25 over the final six serves of the match, and HCU service error.
 
The Huskies earned points on three kills and a block while the Demons got their 12^th block of the match on a solo rejection from La'Treva Kennedy that made the score 24-23. The Huskies closed the match on the next serve with a kill from Sara Arroyo, who led all players with 15 kills in the match.
 
Gerwig led NSU with nine kills on the day with Garza and Wesley each providing seven. Amina Attra got her third straight double-double with 13 assists and 10 digs, one of four players in the match with double-digit digs.
 
NSU returns to Prather Coliseum next week for a pair of home matches against Texas A&M-Corpus Christi and UIW on Thursday and Saturday.