There is an old axiom that says “all good things must come to an end,” but nobody said anything about a crashing end.

For the NIU women’s volleyball team, the tables were turned Tuesday night…make that overturned. NIU journeyed to the Windy City with not only a perfect 4-0 North Star Conference ledger, but a perfect 12-0 “game” record having won all four previous matches on clean sweeps. Tuesday night, it was the University of Illinois-Chicago doing the sweeping as the Flames burned the Huskies, 15-5, 15-6, 15-11.

“UIC played really well, obviously. As good as we played last Friday (in beating pre-season favorite University of Akron), we were the complete reverse tonight. There were no good performances. We were never really in any of the games, even the third game, we were coming from way behind,” NIU coach Pete Waite said. “Everyone had an off night.”

Testimony is the disappearance of NIU’s offense. In game one, the Huskies hit .031 as a group chalking up only six kills against five errors in 32 attempts. Meanwhile UIC batted .357.

In game two, NIU “improved” to .148 with 11 kills minus seven errors in 27 attempts. The Flames were even better hitting .391.

For the third game, NIU managed a .194 hitting efficiency actually having more total kills (14-11) than UIC, but it was too little, too late and not enough to overcome the problem areas. For example, UIC enjoyed a 9-2 edge in ace serves.

“They were serving tough, especially when they needed it. UIC is a scrappy team, they kept a lot of balls in play and at times, we were our own worst enemy,” Waite added.

While UIC boosted its overall standard to 14-10, they stayed atop the North Star Conference with a 4-0 ledger. For NIU, the records slipped to 19-7 and 4-1, but the news was even worse with senior starter Julie Kreiling-Zinke being sidelined in the third game by a right ankle sprain.

The Huskies now return home for a match at Chick Evans Field House against the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay in a 7 p.m. Saturday North Star Conference match-up.