SAN ANTONIO – Northwestern State was unable to rally after dropping the first two tightly-contested sets in Saturday's straight set loss to UIW 3-0 (26-24, 25-20, 25-14).
The Demons rebounded from early four-point deficits in both the first and second sets to challenge for wins at the end, even holding off three set points in the first to push the frame to extra serves. Each time though, miscues and inconsistent offense prevented them from finishing the comeback.
"We haven't been able to put together steady offensive production the last few matches," head coach
Sean Kiracofe said. "Teresa (Garza) had an off night against Commerce and Reaghan (Thompson) had an off day today. Add to that a really uncommon amount of blocking errors (nets) and you'll find yourself coming up a little short in close sets.
"Just like against Commerce, the bright side is we are just a few points away from taking sets one and two without having the normal production from our top two offensive players."
Very little separated the two teams through the first two sets. Although the Cardinals took a 2-0 lead with a 26-24 win in the first and 25-20 win in the second, the margin between them and the Demons was nearly nonexistent.
The Cardinals had three more kills and the Demons had just one more attack error, but NSU led the ace total by two and the teams were dead even on blocks and digs.
The difference came down when and how the teams did, or didn't, score their points. UIW jumped out to an 8-2 lead in the first forcing the Demons to play catchup from the beginning of the day.
The Cardinals scored their first two points of the match on kills, but neither team found a real offensive flow until much later in the set. Only four kills accounted for the first 18 total points of the match.
The first of
Madisynne McQueen's nine kills on the day, and the first for the Demons in the match, sparked a scoring burst for the Demons that propelled them closer to the lead. Six kills accounted for the next six NSU points as they pulled within a pair at 15-13.
UIW held its edge into the late stages before the teams began trading points until reaching set point at 24-20. The Demons used the momentum of a block from
Samaya Wesson and
Teresa Garza to hold of the first of three set points, getting a second rejection from Wesson and
Olivia Bush, to eventually tie the frame at 24 on a Garza service ace.
A Cardinal timeout squelched the Demon momentum though leading to a UIW kill and block of its own to secure the opening set.
NSU had to work its way back from a 10-6 deficit and even later 20-12 margin in the second set. Like she did in the first set, McQueen helped provide a spark to the Demon offense on a day where not all the cylinders were firing at once.
McQueen scored on consecutive swings as part of a 3-0 burst and 8-3 overall run that pulled the Demons within three. The junior finished the match with a season-high nine kills and demolished her former career-best hitting percentage with a .615 total on Saturday, committing just one error on 13 total swings.
A kill from Wesson and a Cardinal error made it a 23-20 score, but the Cardinals closed the door to any potential comeback quicker than they did in the first getting back-to-back kills to claim the 25-20 set win.
The late kills to win the set put the Cardinals into an offensive fugue state they did not leave throughout the entire third set.
They scored eight kills on their first 22 attempts of the third set to take a 14-7 lead, helped along by four NSU errors during the stretch that forced a Demon timeout. After the timeout they scored nine kills on 13 error-free swings closing the match with a .486 hitting percentage without a single attack error on 35 total attempts.
