It was a heartbreak birthday for NIU volleyball coach Pete Waite.

The Huskies gave away a match to Indiana State, 16-14, 15-9, 10-15, 15-12, at Chick Evans Field House Tuesday night and dropped their season record to 3-12. It was the second time this season the Huskies have lost in four games to the Sycamores.

NIU desperately needed a win to turn its season around, but was not quite able to win some key points. The Huskies had leads of 8-0, 9-8, and 11-4 in the games they lost.

First-year coach Rhonda Woodward came into Tuesday night with her team suffering from a five-game losing streak.

“We were having a rough time without (middle blocker) Julie Kovacs, who has been out for two weeks, but now we finally learned how to play without her,” Woodward said. “We knew that in the fourth game we would have a tough time beating them in the fifth. So we made sure that there wouldn’t be a fifth game.

“NIU definitely has made improvements from the first time we played. Wendy (Mason) was hot and cold during the match, but she’s just a freshman and she’s going to be a good player,” said Woodward.

After dropping their first two games, the Huskies came roaring back in the third with Mason, a freshman outside hitter, leading the way. Mason set the pace for the Huskies. When she played well, the Huskies played well. When she was off, the Huskies were off.

Waite said, “Wendy’s playing well for us, but we’re playing well in spurts. We need total concentration and total effort from the beginning of the game to the end of the game.”

Junior Kari Niesen led the Huskies with 24 kills and a .254 attack percentage. Mason had 20 kills for a .244 average. Captain Jamie Steenblock provided 15 kills and a .231 average.

“We’re kind of frustrated right now. We’re tring to turn things around, and we know it’s going to happen. We just need to refocus and go back to how we played in the preseason,” said Steenblock.

The team looked as if it would celebrate Waite’s birthday with a win when the Huskies stormed to an 8-0 lead in the first game. But 16 Huskie errors in the game helped the Sycamores pull off the comeback.

The second game was dead-even with both teams committing plenty of errors, but the Huskies gave away more than they took and suffered the 15-9 setback.

NIU showed what they were capable of in the third game, jumping ahead 8-1 and hanging on to take the game, 15-10. The Huskies then jumped ahead to the 11-4 lead in the fourth game, but could not maintain their advantage.

Senior Julie Kreiling said, “It’s really disappointing. We could have used this match to turn our season around. We just need to play as a whole team and be more consistent all the time.”

“We are much improved,” Waite said. “We play well for the first half of a game, but we need to find a player to finish off the games.

“I believe that the teams we lost to didn’t really beat us—we beat ourselves. I think that we can turn the season around at any time,” he said. “The rest of our season, the teams we play are beatable. We just need to dedicate ourselves to keep making improvements.”