RUSTON – Northwestern State will be presented with a rare opportunity this weekend as it looks for a response performance in more than one way.
 
The Demons (4-3) travel back to North Louisiana this weekend for the annual Battle for the Boot Tournament, now in its third year, that offers teams volleyball teams from the Pelican State a chance to play each other and do so closer to home.
 
Louisiana Tech is this year's host with the Demons, Southeastern and Southern all making their third entries into the weekend's festivities alongside the Bulldogs.
 
Northwestern's two opponents, Southern on Friday and Tech on Saturday are ones they have already squared off against this season. The Demons hosted the Bulldogs in an exhibition match at Prather Coliseum the week before the season started then saw the Jaguars on opening weekend at the Southern Miss Invitational. The Bulldogs "won" the exhibition by taking all for sets with the Demons getting the 3-1 win against Southern.
 
"We have a unique situation this weekend playing two teams that we've seen already," head coach Sean Kiracofe said. "That is rare in the non-conference and even more so in the same weekend. We have a chance to show improvement and get some retribution against Tech with the opposite being true for Southern."
 
The win over the Jaguars was a coming out party for Reaghan Thompson in her new role on the outside this season. She snapped a 108-match streak for NSU without a 20-kill performance by setting a career-high with 21. She converted 60 percent of her swings into kills and led the Demons to the first of four straight wins. NSU won every statistical category in the match except for serving as the Jaguars scored on 10 aces and the Demons committing 18 service errors.
 
"They've looked at film on what worked and didn't and why they lost and are going to come out and do something a little different that we have to respond to,"Kiracofe said. "We absolutely cannot look past them thinking well we beat them once we'll do it again. This is going to be a challenge. For LA Tech it's what can we do differently and better to get that retribution going into a rematch."
 
Since that match, Demon hitters have produced two other 20-kill matches, one from Teresa Garza and two more from Thompson, including in Tuesday night's disappointing and error-filled night at Grambling.
 
In both prior meetings with Southern and Tech, the Demon offense was still adjusting to each other while also learning the pace and style of a new setter who had just joined the team just two weeks prior to the start of the season.
 
Gabby Seeds enrolled in school, moved to Natchitoches and started practice as one of two setters on the team all within the span of a couple days after the start of fall practice. After starting the season in a modified 5-1 formation with Amina Attra and Seeds running the show, how the Demons played in their first meetings with this weekend's opponents, they have changed to a more traditional 5-1 with Seeds serving as a six-rotation setter and running the offense on her own.
 
"All of my hitters have communicated with me and respect and understand that I did come in late," Seeds said about jumping in head first as a setter. "It's been really easy to talk to them about stuff and I feel like they are trusting me more and more out there. Just the consistency of my sets and everything. Being able to talk to them and have them trust me and us being able to communicate back and forth it's been easier."
 
In her first two matches as the lone setter, Seeds put up more than 40 assists including an 11.0 average per set in the win against UL Lafayette. She currently ranks fifth in the conference in assists per set this year with 7.26 and is fourth in overall assists with 196. 
 
The Demons as a whole had a hiccup on Tuesday in the loss to Grambling, due primarily to an abnormal amount of hitting errors, and average of eight per set which was nearly double the 4.5 per set number they had averaged prior to that match.
 
As they enter the final weekend and pair of matches before conference play begins, rectification and retribution will be at the forefront of their minds. Correcting the woes of the midweek and showing the growth against two familiar opponents.
 
"Tuesday night obviously did not go how we wanted it to or like we planned so it's kind of a push for us to get what we want to do this season," Seeds said. "We can't let teams roll over us and we need to compete as a team and not individually."