HAMMOND—This is just the fourth Southland Conference game for Northwestern State, but it already has a monster game to round out the weekend.

The first-place Demons (7-4-1, 3-0) conclude a three-match road trip with a game at second-place Southeastern Louisiana (4-5-1, 3-1) on Sunday at Strawberry Stadium.

Kickoff is at 1 p.m. and is being televised on ESPN+.

"Southeastern is a really good team," head coach Ian Brophy said. "We know it won't be easy to score. If we are able to put some goals on the board, we'll start to feel better about things. For us, it will be about playing our way, controlling possession and putting those chances away we've been getting recently."

Northwestern State is coming off a four-goal outburst in a 4-1 road comeback victory against McNeese. It is the most goals in a road conference game since also scoring four in another 4-1 win at Texas A&M-Commerce in 2022.

The win for Northwestern State at McNeese was the first time the Demons have won a game in which they trailed since a 2-1 win at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi in 2022.

While the Demons were taking care of McNeese, the Lions scored a 2-1 win over preseason favorite Lamar.

The Demons have won seven in a row, the most since 2022. Northwestern State has not won eight in a row since 2000, when it won nine straight games en route to the school's first NCAA Tournament appearance.

Northwestern State scored four more goals in the win at McNeese. The eight goals are the most in the first three SLC games for NSU since 2008

Emily Senatore has recorded two multi-goal games, scoring two in the first 10 minutes to erase McNeese's early lead. Taylor Spitzer and Jessica Spitzer each added a goal to punctuate the win. Jessica's was her first collegiate goal.

"I definitely worked on shooting in the offseason," Senatore said. "Whenever I get the ball, now I always want to go forward. I think that has really helped me scoring goals. When I am in the attacking third, looking to go to the goal as soon as I get it is important."

After surrendering a goal less than a minute in, the defense put the clamps down on the Cowgirls offense the rest of the way to keep them off the board in the final 89 minutes.

The contest features three of the top scorers in SLC games. On the Demons side, Senatore's six points ranks tied for second and Isabella Ruggiano's five points are fourth.

Tied with Senatore is SLU's Hannah McCord, who has also scored six points, including one in the 2-1 win over Lamar. McCord has three of the Lions four goals during league play, outscoring teams 4-3.

While the match features three of the best offensive players in the league, the matchups have routinely been low-scoring close matches in recent years.

In the last 10 years, nine of them have been either scoreless ties or 1-0 games with Northwestern State winning eight times and tied twice. One of the ties was a scoreless draw in which the Lions won in penalty kicks en route to an NCAA Tournament berth during the Spring 2021 season.

"It is motivation for us since so many have been low-scoring," defender Annie Stook said. "We have to make sure we are clinical and take advantage of our opportunities when we get them."

Following the match, Northwestern State heads back to Natchitoches for a stretch of four out of five at home. That string starts with a contest against Houston Christian on Friday evening at the Demon Soccer Complex for the annual Fork Cancer game.