NATCHITOCHES –Seven Northwestern State players got their first taste of what college volleyball looks, sounds and feels like in Saturday's exhibition match against Louisiana Tech.
 
The analysis from first-year head coach Ben Kaszeta on what he saw from those seven, and the team as a whole, could not have left him more pleased.
 
"We fought on every single point," Kaszeta said. "That last set we were down eight or nine and worked our way back to within one. We're young. We've got a whole lot to work on and that identity of what's going to score and how to do that. But the passion they played with today was huge. It was fun."
 
Under the lights and in front of a vocal crowd in Prather Coliseum, the Demons won the opening set 25-17 behind a highly executed and efficient offensive attack.
 
Redshirt freshman setter Reagan Hamm, one of the seven making their playing debuts in the match, helped dish out 14 kills to five different players as the Demons hit .444 in the opening set. No attacker had a single error in the frame with Samaya Wesson and Makenna Tryon combining to hit .643 with nine of the 14 kills.
 
By the end of the opening frame, any nerves that were present from the newcomers was all but gone.
 
"It was nerve-wracking at first, not really on the court, but in the locker room before I was like just pray, take some deep breaths and all that," freshman libero Emmarie McFarland said. "But once I got on the court I felt like I've been playing with them for years and it was good."
 
McFarland led the Demons with 13 digs in the match, playing three of the four sets on the day with the libero jersey. Freshman Harper Cauley served as libero in the third set and finished the day with eight digs as the Demons spread their 48 total digs across nearly the entire roster.
 
The final three sets of the day all went to the Bulldogs, but all were decided by the minimum two-point margin, and included extra points in the 26-24 third set.
 
A 16-dig second set and 21-dig third kept plays alive and rallies going for the Demons who did hold leads within the final five points of both sets before Tech's experience proved too much for NSU to overcome in those late moments.
 
"When you can play that hard when, in theory, it doesn't really count or mean anything it's fun to see," Kaszeta said. "It's also some great leadership from our seniors to go after it and make sure everybody stays consistent. We're probably going to lose some of those crunch moments early on, but as we learn from it and what to do, this group has an incredible high celling. It's going to be a lot of fun to watch us develop."
 
The miscues in the late stages of the sets only slightly outnumbered the moments of quality that stopped Bulldogs scoring runs, often times with emphatic kills from by Elsie Sanchez Oliver or heady tips from Samaya Wesson in the middle. But every play was orchestrated with energy from first contact to last.
 
"I think things went great today," McFarland said. "Coach has said I want y'all to make errors and mistakes as long as they're good mistakes. I think every mistake we made was a good one. I felt like we had good energy even if we were down on the scoreboard. We got a little rocky at one point but playing together for the first time against another team we did well and know what we need to work on going forward.
 
"We don't care how young we are or experienced the other team is we're going to go out and play our game. We can only control ourselves. No matter who is on the other side of the net we'll always play our own game. Today showed us that we can build and be even so much better by the end of the season."
 
The Demons open the 2025 season next Friday with a pair of matches at the Rumble at the Roane against Tennessee State and the weekend host Memphis.