An important match is coming up for the NIU volleyball team when it takes on the Eastern Michigan Hurons at Chick Evans Field House Saturday at 4 p.m.

The Huskies are going to have to prove themselves after a poor showing against the Iowa Hawkeyes Wednesday night. The team’s total hitting percentage was below zero, and Cathy Holmes was the only hitter with a positive attack percentage.

“I am very unsure about the team right now,” Coach Herb Summers said. “I really can’t say anything right now.”

Summers is questioning his squad’s seriousness in playing. He said it was not any one skill that went sour; the Huskies’ total play was off-balance.

“It’s not a matter of what went wrong in hitting or what went wrong with anything,” Summers said. “It was just that we were not wanting to play. We made one silly mental error after another.”

Practices will concentrate on the basics for NIU. It will be a test of who wants to work hard and who does not.

“We know we need to work on passing,” Holmes said. “We have had to all season.”

“Lately, what we have done in practice has not carried over into games,” Summers said. “We’ll have to do some things to shake them up.”

olmes said she was not really sure what went wrong at Iowa. She said she thought warmups went well, but as soon as the Huskies got on the court, they were dead. Holmes said the team’s vulnerability with Eastern Michigan depends on many factors.

“Last night’s game was hard on all of us,” Holmes said. “(This weekend) depends on how well practice goes. I think if everyone realizes how we each felt (after Iowa), no one is going to want to go through it again.”

The Hurons will not enter the match without a fight. Eastern Michigan belongs to the Mid-American Conference, which NIU belonged to two years ago before joining the North Star Conference this season.

Eastern Michigan holds a 13-5 overall record and stands 2-2 in the MAC. NIU’s overall slate is 11-10.

The Hurons are a young team. They have one senior, one junior, three sophomores and four freshmen. The only two returnees are senior Nancy Rademacher, a 5-foot-8 outside hitter, and 6-foot-1 sophomore Roxanne Munch.