On the road again.

That certainly sounds familiar to Jane Albright and the NIU women’s basketball team. Monday night the Huskies face yet another tough task on the road, this time at the Volunteer state. NIU puts its 10-game winning streak on the line against the Lady Commodores of Vanderbilt in a 7 p.m. match-up of two AP Top 30 teams.

The 24th-ranked Huskies are currently enjoying a 15-2 overall record and 4-0 to lead the North Star Conference. Their latest victim came last Thursday as NIU downed Western Illinois University, 92-70. Albright felt positive that the win would help her team prepare for the Lady Commodores, who come into the game ranked No. 30 in the nation.

“The win against Western was a good tune-up for Vanderbilt,” Albright said. “We need to play on their (VU) court and prove something.”

VU returns three starters from a club that went 21-8 a year ago and has posted a 13-6 record through 19 games this year. Junior center Wendy Scholtens leads the offensive attack for VU with Lisa King and Renae Sallquist rounding out a strong post. The Lady Commodores are part of the Southeastern Conference which sent the University of Tennesee to the women’s basketball championship of 1988-89.

“The (Southeastern Conference) sends a lot of teams to the NCAA tournament,” Albright said. “This game would be a bigger win than DePaul (81-75), because it means more nationally.”

The Huskies already have some national respect in the scoring category as they raised their No. 1 scoring attack to 95.7 points per game with the wins over Valparaiso University (110-94) and WIU.

The Lady Commodores will need the experience in the post to defend the balanced attack that NIU is bringing. In the last two NIU victories, all five starters have scored in double figures for the Huskies. Tammy Hinchee is leading the team in scoring with 21.6 points per game and 10.9 rebounds per game. Her partner in the paint, senior Carol Owens, is not far behind with 21.1 ppg and 10 rpg.

Owens, a preseason All-America Candidate, needs just 23 points to become the NIU’s all-time leading scorer for women’s basketball. Owens currently has 1,788 career points which is 22 points short of the 1,810 that Lisa Starosta compiled during her Huskie career.

Lisa Foss comes into the contest averaging 19.2 ppg and Kris Weis, who has made 32 consecutive free throws, is scoring 13 points an outing. The quarterback, Denise Dove, rounds out the attack with 8.4 ppg, but she has come up with 28 points in the last two outings.

NIU will need a good game from everyone as the Huskies look for their first-ever victory over VU. The last time the two teams met, Albright was a rookie coach and the Lady Commodores came away with a 94-68 win.