It was not a picture-perfect game, but the NIU women’s basketball team earned another win Saturday in a 79-62 victory over North Star Conference foe University of Akron.

Despite NIU’s imperfections and rather dull performance, the Huskies (17-4) moved their NSC record to 9-0 while Akron (3-19) dropped to 2-7 in conference play.

“There wasn’t anybody who played real exceptional for us (NIU) today. It was a very average game,” NIU Head Coach Jane Albright said. “We played real ‘blah.’ Things we normally do best we didn’t do best.”

In the absence of any real “standouts”, Cindy Conner led NIU’s scoring chart with 16 points followed by All-American candidate Lisa Foss who fell far below her 25.7 ppg. average with 15 total points.

Foss’s opening basket set up a lead that NIU held onto for the remainder of the game but was far from being flawlessly achieved. The Huskies outscored the Zips 41-22 in the first half only to return and be outdone by Akron 40-38 in the final period.

“I’m not going to pinpoint anything that made us play the way we did. Statistically we weren’t that bad, so there is nothing to be ashamed of,” Albright said. “But when you go from shooting 70 percent to the low 40’s in just a couple of days, that is a lack of concentration not skill.”

The Huskies’ defense appeared to be the bright spot for NIU with 20 steals and 42 rebounds that just barely beat UA’s 39. The Zips, however, gave up 36 turnovers compared to NIU’s 18.

For being on the losing end of the spectrum, Akron’s Head Coach Lisa Fitch was surprisingly less disappointed in the game’s outcome than Albright. According to Fitch, UA used the NIU game as a learning experience.

“At times we play 3-4 freshmen, so it is a good learning experience to play in this kind of atmosphere with such great community support,” Fitch said. “They (the freshmen) play kind of scared, but that is to be expected.”

And with seniors Shelly Brown sidelined for disciplinary reasons and leading scorer Stacey Burrier out with a stress fracture, the Zips were hurting even before the tipoff.

“We’re just going to take experience like this home with us and beat the teams we’re supposed to,” Fitch said.

Meanwhile, Albright said her team is simply hoping to shake off the UA game in time to prepare for the Huskies upcoming battle against Northwestern University, Tuesday.

“Obviously we’ll need to be a lot sharper against Northwestern,” Albright said. “This is a very, very big game for us and we can’t afford to play the way we did today if we want to win.”