DeKALB, IL – The Northern Illinois University volleyball team dropped to 7-10 on the season Tuesday night after a 3-0 (23-25, 20-25, 14-25) loss to the Mid-American Conference west division leading Western Michigan Broncos at Victor E. Court.
 
"Western Michigan is a very good program and at times tonight the match was really fun to watch," said head coach Ray Gooden. "They're m.o. is to have more kills than you and they had a lot of success with that. They were able to pick balls up and take aggressive swings."
 
Senior Kenendy Wallace (Kansas City, Kan./Piper) led the Huskies with 12 kills, hitting .478 for the match and had a match-high four blocks. Jasmine Kemp (DeKalb, Ill./DeKalb) also had four blocks and put down seven kills. Grace Balensiefer (Lafayette, Ind./McCutcheon) had a double-double with 33 assists and a team-high 10 digs.
 
Western Michigan (13-3, 13-3 MAC) got out to a fast start in the match, going on an 8-3 run behind five kills from Rachel Bontrager. The Broncos grew their lead to eight at 16-8 on a Mairead Boyle ace and a Charley Andrews kill. Sparked by a JoDee Kovanda (Lockport, Ill./West Florida) kill, the Huskies went on a 10-1 run to take an 18-17 lead on a kill from Wallace, who had a pair of blocks with Kaitlyn Bell (De Soto, Kan./De Soto) during that stretch. Western Michigan tied the set at 18 on a Cassandra Smigiel kill and the two teams traded points up to 23-23. The Broncos earned set point on a Maggie King kill and took the set 25-23 on Bontrager's eighth kill of the set. Western Michigan hit .425 in the opening set to NIU's .378.
 
NIU (7-10, 7-10 MAC) battled out of an early deficit in set two to tie it at seven on kills from Kemp and Kovanda. With the set tied at 13, the Broncos got kills from King and Andrews to take a 15-13 lead. The Huskies got the deficit down to one when a Wallace kill and a Western Michigan error made the score 19-18. However, the Broncos took over from there and won six of the last eight points in the set to win it 25-20 and go up 2-0 in the match.
 
The Broncos ran away in the third set, breaking a 4-4 tie with an 11-3 run to take a 15-7 lead on three straight kills from King and Bontrager. Western Michigan hit a match-high .485 in the set and held NIU to .118 to take it 25-14 and the match 3-0.
 
King and Meredith Phillips led Western Michigan with 14 kills each. Bontrager had 13 kills and a match-high 13 digs. NIU held an 8.0-1.0 advantage in blocks while Western Michigan had the edge in digs 48-32.
 
NIU goes on the road for its next three matches, starting with two at Kent State this weekend. The Huskies and Golden Flashes square off on Friday, March 19 at 4 p.m.
 
--NIU--