DeKALB, IL – The Northern Illinois University volleyball team won its fifth match out of the last six Thursday afternoon, defeating the Akron Zips 3-0 (25-16, 25-20, 25-20) at Victor E. Court.
 
The Huskies hit a season-high .333 in the victory. Junior setter Grace Balensiefer (Lafayette, Ind./McCutcheon) guided the NIU offense with 27 assists, adding 12 digs and three blocks. Kennedy Wallace (Kansas City, Kan./Piper) hit .412 with nine kills and had three blocks. Jasmine Kemp (DeKalb, Ill./DeKalb) had seven kills and also hit .412. Ella Mihacevich (Brunswick, Ohio/Padua Franciscan) had six kills and four aces, hitting .750 for the match.
 
"I think our passing really helped us out in trying to establish ourselves early," said head coach Ray Gooden. "It helps with a good first contact and our setter being able to locate our middles who did a really good job scoring points for us."
 
NIU (6-7, 6-7 MAC) used a 5-0 run that included a pair of Mihacevich aces to take a 7-4 lead in the opening set. The Huskies grew the lead to six at 14-8 with a 5-1 run bookended by kills by Kemp. NIU hit .464 in the opening set and took set point at 24-15 on a 4-1 run that included two kills from Katie Jablonski (Elburn, Ill./New Hampshire). The Huskies won the set 25-16 on an Akron service error to go up 1-0 in the match.
 
In the second set, NIU broke away early with a 5-1 run capped by two Kemp kills to take an 8-5 lead. Akron got within two at 12-10 on a Shelby Fulmer kill, but a block by Wallace and Kaitlyn Bell (De Soto, Kan./De Soto) started a 4-1 Huskies run that put NIU ahead 16-11. NIU led 19-12 when the Zips won five of the next seven points to get within four, 21-17, on an Emily Weigand ace. The two teams traded points from there with NIU going up 2-0 in the match with a Wallace kill on set point giving the Huskies a 25-20 win.
 
Akron (3-10, 3-10 MAC) opened the third set on a 6-1 run highlighted by two kills from Alexis Adleta. The Zips extended their lead to 11-4 on two kills each from Faith Johnson and Hannah Yaconis. NIU rallied back to get within two with a 6-1 run as three straight Mihacevich kills made the score 14-12. Trailing 17-14, NIU went on a 5-0 run that included a block from Balensiefer and Wallace and a Jablonski kill to take a 19-17 lead. Akron got within one at 21-20 but that was as close as the Zips would get. The Huskies won the last four points of the set, and the match, with Mihacevich's sixth kill punctuating a 25-20 third set win and a 3-0 sweep.
 
NIU held a 46-44 edge in digs and had a 7.0-3.0 advantage in blocks. Sophomore libero Samantha Juarez (Batavia, Ill./Batavia) led the match with 18 digs. The Huskies had eight aces in the match and held Akron, the Mid-American Conference's leader in aces coming into this week, to just three.
 
"The Miami matches last week helped us prepare for Akron because they're a really good serving team too," Gooden said. "We were ready for Akron to come out and really put some serves on us. Our serve receive group did a solid job of keeping negative plays to a minimum and then allowing us to continue to play throughout the point."
 
The two teams conclude their weekend series Friday at 4 p.m.
 
--NIU--