Women’s volleyball (19-11, 14-2 MAC) saw its season come to an end yesterday as it lost in the MAC Championship to Ohio after beating Miami (Ohio) in the previous round.

Miami (Ohio)

The Huskies defeated the Redhawks in four sets in Saturday’s game, winning all of them by two. Miami gave NIU its first set loss in over a month, but it wasn’t enough as NIU was able to fight through late leads throughout the match.

Junior outside hitter T’ara Austin tallied a career-high 23 digs in the game. The Huskies finished the game with a total of 107 digs.

Senior setter Alexis Gonzalez picked up 47 assists in the match. She now ranks in the top 10 of the MAC’s career assists list and is No. 2 on NIU’s all-time career list with 4,809 behind Shelby Snyder who racked up 6,052 assists from 1991 to 1994.

Ohio

Ohio was ranked second in the MAC going into the Championship game with a record of 25-5 and had won four games in a row.

Ohio returned the favor with a 3-0 sweep to win the 2015 MAC Tournament. The Huskies were never able to catch a groove in the game and got swept for the first time since Oct. 2 against Ball State.

Gonzalez finished the game with 31 assists to raise her career totals even more in what turned out to be her last career game at NIU. Her career ends with 4,846 total assists, the third most in MAC history.

“At some point, we’ll remember that we were the best in the West and that we were the regular season champions,” said head coach Ray Gooden, according to an NIU Athletics news release. “There’s something to be said for that for all that we went through this year. It’s a testament to all 14 of our players.”