DEKALB, Ill. – The Northern Illinois University women's tennis team had a productive day scoring a pair of home victories at two different locations on Friday.
 
NIU (10-8, 3-2) picked up its first victory of the day with a 4-3 win over 2019 Mid-American Conference champions Miami at the Boylan Tennis Center in Rockford before earning a 7-0 triumph over Northern Iowa at Chick Evans Field House.
 
"We are so proud of our team and the way they competed today," NIU head coach Eric Burns said. "The Miami win was a breakthrough win for this program. We are finally starting to believe that we can compete with anyone regardless of the history of the match ups in the past. We knew we were very capable, but sometimes it's hard to have that belief when you get out there in the heat of the moment."
 
The Huskies' win over Miami (7-7, 1-4) was NIU's first over the RedHawks since April 12, 2003 in DeKalb and the double's point proved to be the difference in the match.
 
NIU won all three doubles' matches on the evening with the No. 3 team of Diana Lukyanova and Iullia Dmitrieva earning the 7-5 win to clinch the point.
 
The Huskies went up 3-0 with wins at No. 1 and No. 3 singles. Maria Potsi posted a 6-0, 6-3 straight set win at No. 1 singles, while Lukyanoka continued her winning streak to 14 matches with a 6-4, 3-0 win over Miami's Sofia Zaprianova, who was forced to retire.
 
Christy Robinson clinched NIU's first win over the RedHawks in 18 years with a thrilling three-set victory. The Huskie junior rallied from a 2-6 setback in the first set to win 6-4, 7-6.
 
"Christy was absolutely huge in the Miami match," Burns said. "She fought off match points in what ended up being the deciding match. It was absolutely a team effort across the board today. We couldn't be more excited. It was a great day for the Huskies."
 
NIU rode the high from the Miami win to a strong performance against Northern Iowa. Anastasia Rakita got back in the win column with a 4-6, 6-0, 6-1 win over the Panthers at No. 2 singles. Lukyanova won her 15th consecutive match with a 7-5, 6-4 win over Thaissa Moreira.
 
The Huskies travel to Kalamazoo, Mich. Sunday for their third and final match of the weekend. NIU is looking for their first win over the Broncos since 2017, the only win for the Huskies over Western Michigan all-time. The match will start at 12 p.m. CT.
 
-NIU-