EDINBURG, Texas – Northwestern State continues its weeklong trek through Texas on Thursday as it begins perhaps its most challenging stretch of matches of the conference schedule.
 
After a road loss at UIW this past Saturday, the Demons (6-6, 1-2) make their first trip to the valley to begin a four-match home-and-home with Southland Conference newcomer UTRGV and perennial conference championship contender Texas A&M-Corpus Christi.
 
Although the first year in the league, the Vaqueros were picked to finish second in the conference behind Stephen F. Austin while the Islanders were picked fourth behind two-time defending champion Southeastern.
 
Northwestern plays the first two matches on the road beginning with Thursday nights 6:30 p.m. first serve on ESPN+ as volleyball become the first Demon team to make the trip to the southern tip of Texas.
 
Self-inflicted wounds proved costly for the Demons in their straight set loss at UIW this past weekend. While the number of hitting errors in the match for Northwestern were on par for what they'd seen all year, about five per set, the jump in blocking errors and uncharacteristic and abnormal miscues had a spike.
 
"The bright side is that it is very fixable," head coach Sean Kiracofe said. "It's not something that the other teams are doing to the point that we just can't stop this, we are literally just giving away points. Some of the errors are things didn't go our way, some are making bad decisions and reevaluating how we approach those same situations when are in them again and be better at it."
 
With four matches against two quality opponents on the horizon, it goes without saying that cutting out those mistakes as much as possible puts the Demons in the best position to pick up impressive road wins.
 
After getting their first two Southland wins in program history on the road last week, the Vaqueros lost an intense Tuesday night match with rival A&M-Corpus Christi to start their three-match week. Three of the five sets were decided by two points with a fourth decided by just three points.
 
While the highly effective UTRGV offense produced 20 more kills than the Islanders behind their big three offensive options, they also had 17 more hitting errors in the match that opened the door for the home loss to their rivals.
 
Three players – Ilana De Assis, Claudia Lupescu and Nadine Zech – average more than 3.4 points per set this season and each are converting their kills at a rate greater than .215. De Assis is second in the Southland at 4.17 kills and 4.39 points per set, just ahead of Reaghan Thompson in both categories.
 
"We've talked about how we've been looking for that third and fourth option on offense and having them produce at higher levels to complement what Reaghan and Teresa (Garza) are doing," Kiracofe said. "UTRGV is the perfect example of a team doing that. They have great outsides, a great right side and they do 90 percent of all their point scoring and they do it well and consistently. 
 
"So if you can slow down one, what happens then. They're middles, while capable, have not been in a position where they've had to carry the load offensively. Can the other two players, whoever that is, be capable of scoring more than they have to make up for it. So we have to put them in those positions."
 
UTRGV was held to 10.8 kills per set as a team in a pair of losses to quality defensive teams Texas State and SFA two weeks ago. In their three matches since then they have averaged more than 16.5 kills per set with a hitting percentage near .300 during that time.
 
"Historically we have done a good job of being able to focus on a player or two on the other side and been able to slow them down," Kiracofe said. "Even with that theory of take out their best player and don't let the rest beat you there have been times where we let the rest beat us. But we've always done a good job defensively of slowing down our defensive focal point in matches. We have to do that against UTRGV and make someone else step up and then obviously not let them then beat us." 
 
The Demons boast three of the top defenders in the league led by libero Ashlyn Svoboda on the back row with an elite level blocking presence regardless of the rotation.
 
Svoboda, who now ranks sixth on NSU's career dig leaderboard with 1,268 and could pass Megan Lohmiller for fifth all-time this week, has averaged nearly 5.0 digs per set over the past four matches. Add Thompson and Garza's top 15 in the conference 3.0+ digs per set and the Demons have the personnel to combat the high-powered Vaqueros.
 
Northwestern also continues to maintain its standard of blocking and ranks second behind SFA at 2.44 blocks per set and the only team with three players listed in the top 10 in the conference in blocks per set – Deja Benjamin (1.30), Samaya Wesson (1.00), Olivia Bush (0.95).
 
In each of UTRGV's three losses over the past five matches, teams have averaged more than 2.0 blocks per set against. In their two wins opponents blocked less than 1.8 per set.