Women's Volleyball | November 11
DeKALB, IL – The Northern Illinois University volleyball team opens its final homestand of the regular season this weekend with two matches against the Buffalo Bulls this Friday and Saturday at Victor E. Court. Both matches have first serve at 6 p.m.
Friday night's match will be broadcast on ESPN+ with Saturday's on Huskie All-Access. Prior to Saturday night's match, NIU will honor the four seniors on this season's team in
Miranda Karlen (Evansville, Wis./Evansville),
Grace Balensiefer (Lafayette, Ind./McCutcheon),
Jasmine Kemp (DeKalb, Ill./DeKalb) and
Angie Gromos (West Chicago, Ill./West Chicago).
NIU (13-12, 7-8 MAC) enters the weekend holding onto the sixth the final Mid-American Conference tournament berth, leading Buffalo, Kent State and Central Michigan by two games with three to play.
"The simple thing for us to do is handle what's in front of us," said head coach
Ray Gooden. "This weekend it's Buffalo and both of our teams have a lot to play for to finish off the season and reach the MAC Tournament. It was good for our last regular season road trip to end on a positive note that we played better together, especially on Saturday. It's important for us to be able to continue to improve on that heading into these final three matches."
The Huskies earned their first weekend sweep of league play last weekend, taking two matches at Akron by scores of 3-1 and 3-0. NIU held the Zips to a .113 hitting percentage over the weekend which propelled the Huskies into third in the MAC in opponent hitting percentage. Junior outside hitter
Katie Jablonski (Elburn, Ill./New Hampshire) averaged 3.7 kills per set against Akron with a match-high 16 kills in the Huskies' 3-1 win last Friday. She is in the top-10 in the league in both points and kills per set.
"It's good to know that if we can do what we're capable of doing, the rest will take care of itself," Gooden said. "This series with Buffalo is going to be big. Buffalo is very physical, very aggressive, and work really hard on defense. We've got to do our best to manage the of play Buffalo plays, which is similar to much of the competition we've played this year."
Buffalo is 5-11 in the MAC after splitting two matches against Western Michigan last weekend. The Bulls have split each of their last three conference weekends. Buffalo is fifth in the MAC in hitting percentage at .216. Sophomore outside hitter Milla Malik is eighth in the league with 3.38 kills per set.
Tickets for this weekend's series, as well as the regular season finale against Western Michigan on Wednesday, Nov. 17 are available at NIUHuskies.com/MyHuskies or by calling the NIU Athletics Ticket Office at 815-753-PACK (7225).
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