Northwestern State Lady Demons were not able to pick up a win last week as conference play continued, losing to Central Arkansas 1-3 and Stephen F. Austin 1-3. Both games were at Prather Coliseum and the Lady Demons will remind home this week to face McNeese on Thursday Oct. 11 and Lamar on Saturday, Oct. 13.

Redshirt Sophomore middle blocker Brooke Wood believes that winning starts with defense and if they work together on defense then they can come out with wins this week.

“I think a lot of times in games you lose because of your defense,” Wood said. “Especially if we are down or if the match is difficult or [it] becomes hard to have defense, then it’s really important that we work together as a team and execute blocks and execute digs.

“We really have been working on defense,” Wood added.

Brooke Wood knows getting their blocks set will lead to more blocks during the game. The key to each game is to limit your opponent’s shots and our Lady Demons work hard to make sure they set up to have multiple blocks during the game. That will be the key for our Lady Demons going into the games this week at home.

“I think something we focus on was getting our blocks set so middles can close. If we don’t have a good set block then we can’t really have a good block total so that I think that really pressing and working hard and getting there is what we worked on,” Wood said.

The goal for every game is to limit the chances for your opponent’s score but in order to win the game our Lady Demons have to score.

Senior Middle Blocker Madeline Drake knows reading the opponent’s block set and working around it will be the best way to score.

“I was able to see the block and see where I was open and I was able to hit that or tip and get the point and it was great,” Drake said.

Our Lady Demons look to break their current two game losing streak and get back on the winning side against McNeese. Drake that will start with their mindset.

“I think we just decided that we are not going lose at Prather,” Drake said. “Our goal is to protect Prather and I think we just decided we are not going lose this game”

Head Coach Sean Kiracofe said his team made a couple of errors throughout the game this past week but he knows they can improve on their errors for the upcoming games.

“We were very consistent tonight and there are still areas that we could’ve did a better job at,” Kiracofe said. “A couple of silly errors here and there but we minimize them compared to previous matches and put us in position to win, which I was happy about.”

Our Lady Demons are going be home this week to play McNeese on Oct. 11 followed by Lamar on Oct. 13 as they look to get back on the winning side.

Their current record is 6-10 overall and 2-4 in conference play.

Photo by Chris Reich.