NATCHITOCHES – After storming to the championship of the Southland Conference Women's Tennis Tournament, the Northwestern State Lady Demons will find out Tuesday about their draw for their second NCAA Team Championships appearance in four seasons.
 
The NCAA bracket including regional sites beginning May 10-11 will be announced at NCAA.com during a 30-minute webcast beginning at 4:30 CST on Tuesday.
 
The fourth-seeded Lady Demons (14-7) enjoyed a winning weekend in Beaumont, Texas, putting away No. 5 Stephen F. Austin, No. 1 Southeastern Louisiana and No. 2 Texas A&M-Corpus Christi in their quest to become the SLC Tournament champions, winning by a 4-1 margin in each contest.
 
NSU has made an appearance in the Southland Tournament title match in three out of the last four seasons, capturing the program's first NCAA berth with the tournament championship after a regular-season crown in 2010.
 
The win marks Lady Demon head coach Patric DuBois' second SLC Tournament title with NSU and eighth overall. DuBois registered six conference tournament victories during his time as the head men's and women's coach at Texas Arlington.
 
“Getting to experience this success is obviously very enjoyable,” said DuBois. “It is not easy to do but we have been very fortunate to get such talented student-athletes here at Northwestern State.”
 
This is also the second conference tournament title for assistant coach Olga Bazhanova and senior captain Andrea Nedorostova. Bazhanova was a sophomore on the 2010 squad and Nedorostova was a freshman on NSU's best-ever team, a 21-3 squad.
 
Although it has ended on a high note, the 2013 Southland Conference season was anything but easy for the Lady Demons as six of their nine conference matches ended in 4-3 decisions – including a regular-season win over SFA and losses to SLU and A&M-CC. They, however, think that the regular season helped prepare them for the intensity of the tournament.
 
“We have a young team this year with only one senior and Andrea did a good job leading them,” said DuBois. “Being young, we had our ups and downs and had a lot of 4-3 matches so we saw a lot of pressure matches this year. We won a few and lost a few but when it came to tournament time we were used to the pressure.
 
“In the tournament we just focused on each individual match at a time and we were intent on adding them up at the end. I think we peaked at the right time and that is what our goal is as coaches, to peak at the right time for this tournament. We had a pretty good non-conference schedule and a very tough Southland Conference schedule to help us prepare.”
 
One Lady Demon in particular had confidence on her side leading up to the title match.
 
Sophomore Tatiana Larina made her intentions clear on Twitter, sending a bold tweet prior to the match declaring, “I will not be stopped.” The Taganrog, Russia native and Nedorostova quickly won the No. 1 doubles match 8-3. Larina then grabbed the first singles point of the match, taking down Texas A&M-Corpus Christi's Maider Marter 6-3, 6-2 in the No. 2 singles position.
 
The highlight of the competition, though, would come in the No. 4 singles match when Nedorostova was able to end her SLC Tournament career by clinching the championship for the Lady Demons as she overpowered Sandra Burgess 6-2, 6-2.
 
“I was not even looking around at the other scores so I did not know if mine was the last match or not,” said Nedorostova. “I just decided to focus on my match and when I saw how happy my teammates were after my match I knew that we had won and I think I kneeled on the ground; I was just extremely happy.”