HOUSTON – Northwestern State hits the final stretch of the season on Saturday when it makes its final road trip to HCU.
 
The Demons close out their lone three-match week of the conference schedule looking for a chance of fortune on the road against a team they have recent success against.
 
First serve is set for the later-than-normal 6:30 p.m. start on Saturday evening at HCU. There will be no live stream for the match but live stats will made available through nsudemons.com.
 
After the disappointment of dropping three sets by four points or less in Tuesday's road match at then Texas A&M-Commerce, now known as East Texas A&M, the Demons came out with an energy and effort perfect for a bounce-back performance.
 
They closed the first set with a 4-1 scoring run and held off a set point along the way playing quality offense and defense across the board throughout the way. The final three sets though had the Demons scrambling to recapture that form as UIW stayed on the attack most of the rest of the night starting with their service abilities. 
 
"We got into some tough rotations against UIW and just couldn't find our way out of them so we had some head dipping later on in the match because of it," head coach Sean Kiracofe said. "We addressed that after the match, and I don't think we'll see that again and it is to our benefit that we are playing HCU on Saturday because we know we can beat them.
 
"So whether things go your way or not we know that we can do this. It'll be a little bit of a different matchup, which is not unexpected, because they've changed things up a bit in terms of positions so there'll be some things we have to figure out from a scout stand point. But we know we can beat them and it's a matter of keeping that mentality throughout each point, each set, the whole match."
 
NSU fought for a 3-2 win over HCU on Halloween in Prather Coliseum behind an historic performance from Reaghan Thompson and Teresa Garza who both put up 20 kills, the first teammates to do so in a single match in NSU history.
 
It was the best team offensive performance of the season with NSU hitting .282 and four of the five primary attackers hitting .270 or higher for the match. At the time the Demons had the best team hitting percentage in a five-set conference match this year. Their .282 mark is now second behind A&M-Corpus Christi who hit .288 in five sets at UIW this past Saturday.
 
With Garza and Thompson's 43 kills a likely focal point for the Huskies defense the second time around, the Demons received a boost on Thursday from right side Olivia Bush who had nine kills on 27 error free swings against UIW. She had seven kills against HCU in the first meeting but with five misses.
 
The Huskies have won three straight matches since their loss in Natchitoches a little over a week ago, including a five-set, reverse sweep victory on Thursday against East Texas A&M. The Huskies hit over .235 in each of the final three sets to hold off the Lions.
 
Saturday's match will also be the third match of the week for HCU as well.
 
"I say you're only tired if you chose to be tired," Kiracofe said. "It's easier for me to say that but that's how I approach things. If I don't want to be tired then I'm not tired. If I want to be motivated to get this next point or be what I want to be in the next match then it doesn't matter what I feel like, I'm going to choose to have energy and go out and play at a high level. Hopefully they will buy into that to give us a little extra after a long week."