Matt Hopkinson

Staff Writer

DeKalb | Tuesday night at Victor E. Court, NIU women’s volleyball will play host to a name that makes most people from Illinois cringe: the Green Bay Phoenix.

While not quite as skin-crawling as their NFL counterpart, the Phoenix (1-2) have the complete attention from junior middle-blocker Sarah Angelos , and the rest of the NIU (1-2) volleyball squad.

“Green Bay is consistently a good team,” Angelos said. “They’re a close team to us, and their style of play is similar to ours in that they play fast. They’re pretty solid in their conference, so beating them is a good thing for us. It shows we can play against other conference schools and still be successful against them.”

Head coach Ray Gooden believes the Green Bay team will come in ready to play.

“They have a lot of their players returning,” Gooden said. “It’s one of their better teams they’ve had in a while. They’re going to be a very experienced team and will be very aggressive against us.”

From the standpoint of increased competition, Gooden still expects and wants to see a victory, but also knows there are issues his team needs to address and hammer out in this game and throughout the season.

“Serving, passing and execution,” Gooden said. “Those are the biggest things. I think we passed the ball pretty well in our tournament, but not for as long of a period of time as we needed to.”

This game will serve as the final of a four game home stretch for the Huskies, which Angelos cites as a huge plus to help the team ease into the season.

“Starting the season at home is probably the best thing I could ever imagine,” Angelos said. “You want to get into a rhythm, be comfortable and be in your own gym to have your fans cheer you on.”