Women's Volleyball | September 12

DeKALB, IL – The Northern Illinois University volleyball team opens a stretch of six consecutive matches on the road this weekend when heads to San Antonio, Texas to play in the Cardinal Classic hosted by Incarnate Word.
 
The Huskies wrapped up a run of five matches in seven days on Monday with a 3-1 (18-25, 25-18, 24-26, 14-25) loss to Texas Tech at Victor E. Court. That match, combined with NIU's three matches last weekend at the Dayton Invitational against Dayton, Michigan, and Missouri proved to be a barometer of where NIU is at early in the 2019 season.
 
"Those matches were really good tests for us," said head coach Ray Gooden. "I felt at times we were doing some pretty good things. It also shows that we're still inconsistent and just need to continue to work on that and be opportunistic when we can."
 
NIU has shown a balanced offense through its first eight matches, with three players averaging over two kills per set. Junior Kennedy Wallace (Kansas City, Kan./Piper) leads the team with 2.77 kills per set followed closely by freshman Kaitlyn Bell's (De Soto, Kan./De Soto) 2.74. Peyton Tilly (Barrington, Ill./Barrington) is third on the team with 2.06 kills per set. That trio combined for 34 of NIU's 48 kills against Texas Tech on Monday.
 
"Balance is good because it's hard for teams to scheme against us," Gooden said. "We feel like we've got capable enough people on our team. The biggest thing right now is just that our kill number needs to continue to increase or we have to manufacture points on other ways, whether with blocks or aces. We want to increase our number of kills per set because that just helps us with our level of scoring."
 
The Huskies' trip to San Antonio is NIU's first voyage to Texas since playing in the Texas A&M-Corpus Christi Invitational in 2007. NIU will be facing Incarnate Word and Niagara for the first time ever and Delaware for the first time since 1994.
 
"We're facing three teams with significantly different styles from different regions of the country," Gooden said about the opposition this weekend. "It gives us ways to measure where we're at. All four teams are in a spot where they're just looking to continue to get better and improve to make the next step for their respective conference seasons."
 
NIU opens the tournament at 11 a.m. Friday against Incarnate Word, followed by a 4:30 p.m. match against Niagara. The Huskies take on Delaware on Saturday at 11 a.m. NIU remains on the road on Tuesday, Sept. 17 to take on Milwaukee in a midweek match at 6 p.m.
 
--NIU--