Drop Cougars in three games

NIU’s volleyball team, alias “The Broom Crew,” came as close to a perfect sweep as possible Friday.

Not only did the Huskies register their 17th three-game sweep, they almost kept Chicago State University off the board in a 15-0, 15-1, 15-1 contest that lasted only 40 minutes. The triumph boosted NIU’s record to 22-7 while CSU’s Cougars dropped to 2-27.

“Quite honestly, it hasn’t been a good year for Chicago State and their frustration was obvious. As a result, we had to concentrate on executing and we did that well. We maintained our concentration and didn’t allow our play to become sloppy,” NIU coach Pete Waite said. “We were certainly able to get everybody on the court, and the more experience people have, the stronger that makes us. It’s hard to single any one individual out because we had such balanced hitting, it was really a team effort.”

NIU batted .473 for the match topped off by an incredible .824 efficiency in game three. In that particular game, NIU nailed 15 kills minus one error in 18 attempts. For the entire match, the Huskies had 32 kills against six errors in 55 attempts.

Conversely, Chicago State struggled all evening long, hitting a negative .100 for the contest with only 11 kills as opposed to 16 errors in 50 attempts.

For NIU, the best individual numbers belonged to Becky Ramsey, who hammered down nine kills in 11 attempts with no errors for an .818 average. Amy Foulke was next in line at .625 with five kills and no errors in eight attempts.

The Huskies have a major battle ahead of them as NIU journeys to Chicago for a 7:30 p.m. Friday showdown with North Star Conference leader DePaul University.