NATCHITOCHES – The 2024 Northwestern State volleyball schedule features tournament weekends in three different states along with a slightly shortened, but no less challenging, slate of Southland Conference matches.
 
The Demons, under head coach Sean Kiracofe who is entering his 10^th season, begin the 2024 campaign on Aug. 30 at Southern Miss. They play a pair of matches on opening day starting with the weekend's host Golden Eagles, followed immediately by a matchup with Southern.
 
They close the weekend on Saturday against Jacksonville and its first-year head coach Alicia Roth, who began her coaching career as an assistant at NSU to Kiracofe in 2015 and 2016. 
 
The 2024 home opener, and only midweek home match in non-conference play, sees NSU host Jackson State on Sept. 3 at 6 p.m. in Prather Coliseum.
 
NSU travels to Houston (Sept. 6-7) and Louisiana Tech (Sept. 13-14) for the final two tournament weekends of the season, facing at least one Louisiana team in both instances.
 
The Demons take on UL Lafayette at the Flo Hyman Classic in Houston and will participate in the Battle for the Boot for the third straight season where they face this year's host Tech along with Southern to close out non-conference play.
 
Conference play for NSU begins with two straight home matches on Tuesday, Sept. 24 against A&M-Commerce and the following Saturday, Sept. 28 against Nicholls.
 
The league is returning to a 16-match conference schedule for the first time since 2018 after two straight 18-match seasons. NSU will play every team in the conference once during the year and will see five teams twice. The teams the Demons will see two times are HCU, UIW, A&M-Commerce, A&M-Corpus Christi and the newest member of the conference UTRGV. 
 
Following the first road trip of the season to UIW on Oct. 5, the Demons embark on a challenging home-and-home swing that begins with a trip to UTRGV (Oct. 10) and Corpus Christi (Oct. 12) and the Vaqueros and Islanders making their way to Natchitoches the following weekend on Oct. 17 and 19.
 
NSU will reunite with longtime rival Stephen F. Austin for the first time since 2020 when they travel to Nacogdoches on Oct. 26, the only meeting between the two schools during the regular season.
 
The Demons host HCU in Prather Coliseum on Halloween night to close the month of October.
 
After trips to McNeese (Nov. 2) and Commerce (Nov. 5), NSU has thee home dates across the final four of the season and five total matches within the final 12 days. The Demons host UIW (Nov. 7), New Orleans (Nov. 14) and defending SLC champions Southeastern (Nov. 16) to close the regular season inside Prather.
 
The 2024 Southland Conference Tournament runs from Nov. 21-24 in Hammond, La.