DeKalb | While the weekend’s record may not reflect the amount of work put into the NIU invitational tournament, the length of the games will.

NIU women’s volleyball (1-2) opened its regular season at home, hosting North Dakota State (0-3), New Mexico State (3-0) and Wichita State (2-1).

The Huskies were able to win in their first game against North Dakota State in a tightly contested five set victory.

The next day and game proved to be equally as grueling, as NIU dropped a five set match to Wichita, and then dropped their third and final game of the weekend, a mere hour after the marathon match in four sets to New Mexico State.

“I think there were some good things,” said head coach Ray Gooden. “We played against three teams that have RPIs in the top 40. We got a win from one of them against North Dakota State.”

Gooden believes the final two games of the tournament were within reach of victory, but knows his team has areas in which it can improve.

“We played a real tough match against Wichita State,” Gooden said. “We really had a chance to pull it off. It didn’t work our way toward the end. We knew it would be hard against New Mexico. They’re a very good team. We played well the first set, but didn’t pull it off in the end.”

New Mexico State head coach Mike Jordan believes his team made the correct adjustments after the initial set.

“The first set was really difficult,” Jordan said. “NIU played very fast, they served great. We were completely out of whack, a nightmare. They showed what kind of team they can be. After the first set, I wasn’t sure what was going to happen.”

The final match against New Mexico saw NIU scrambling on the offensive side, lacking the ability to execute kills and unable to overcome a strong blocking group that posted a total of 19 team blocks in the match to just three by NIU.

“I think they figured out where we were going,” said senior outside hitter Mary Kurisch. “They came at us with different plays that caught us off guard.”

Sophomore outside hitter MacKenzie Roddy finished with a team leading 44 kills over the three games, and NIU as a team notched 17 aces over the three games.

Gooden believes this weekend served notice to his team if they hope to find success.

“A lot of positives, a lot to work on,” Gooden said. “We need experience. We’re literally getting on-the-job training right now. We’re going to take our lumps. I do think there’s some flashes of it, we played pretty well against Wichita and in the first set against New Mexico.”