NATCHITOCHES – Northwestern State is looking for a bounce-back performance when it hosts Nicholls in the first Saturday home match of the season.
 
A defensive dip for the Demons on Tuesday night led to a conference-opening loss to Texas A&M-Commerce where the Lions scored at an efficient .311 rate, the majority of which coming from its two outside hitters.
 
"We didn't do our jobs defensively and then when we had opportunities to make plays we didn't," head coach Sean Kiracfoe said following the match. "With our setting situation and running Gabby (Seeds) across the front row we're always going to be smaller there. But we've been small all year and played teams with decent outsides and been able to do something against them. Tonight, we couldn't."
 
Tuesday's match was the fourth time in the past five matches that an opponent has had a hitting percentage of .245 or better against the Demons. 
 
With the 10-day period between matches behind them, the Demons look to regain the defensive standard they held during the four-match win streak to start the month. They held opponents to hitting percentages below .200 in each of those matches despite having fewer total digs than their opponents in three of the four matches.
 
Senior libero Ashlyn Svoboda has been steady on the back row averaging 5.0 digs per set in each of the past two matches, upping her season average to 3.95, the sixth best in the Southland. She also needs just 20 digs to move into sixth on NSU's career digs leaderboard.
 
Along with arguably the best outside hitter combination in the league of Reaghan Thompson and Teresa Garza, who have the highest combined digs per set of any two outsides in the conference, a match against a Nicholls offense that comes in hitting .175 overall could serve as a return to form for the Demon defense.
 
The Colonels lost their first conference match on Thursday 3-1 against HCU and were held to a season-low .086 hitting percentage in the match. Leah Linares Castro, the team leader offensively this year, had 10 kills in the match.
 
The Huskies had three players with double-digit kills and four with 10 or more digs in the win, something the Demons have done on multiple occasions as well this year.
 
Thompson led the team with 16 kills in Tuesday's loss to Commerce on her second most efficient offensive performance of the season at .378. Over the past four matches Thompson is hitting .239 with 63 kills, reaching double-digits in each match while averaging 4.8 kills per set, the best four-match stretch of her career.
 
She added 10 digs for her seventh double-double of the year, and third in a row, and although it was a rare off night for Garza offensively, she finished with 11 digs and has only had one match this year with less than 10 digs, providing that consistent defensive support on the back row.
 
The key for the Demons comes at the net and the ability to produce both offensively and defensively. Adding more production on the offensive side to complement the wildly impressive numbers that Thompson and Garza continue to produce and helping limit the offensive options of opponents with a consistent, timely block.