Heading into last weekend’s matches, the women’s volleyball team had hopes of moving into second place in the MAC West. However, after the weekend, the Huskies are clinging to fourth place with a chance of dropping to fifth after losing road matches to Eastern and Central Michigan.

NIU (11-17, 5-9) fell 1-3 Friday to EMU (18-11 8-6) and was swept 0-3 Saturday by CMU (19-8 9-5). With only two matches left this season, NIU cannot catch either of those teams, and Ball State, winning both of its weekend matches, trails NIU by only one match.

The Huskies played tough against EMU Friday, losing the first game 29-31 before taking the second 30-28.

“We need to find a way to close out games against good teams like Eastern Michigan,” NIU coach Ray Gooden said. “We had a chance to take some of those games, but we just couldn’t do it.”

Senior Laura Baetzel led the Huskies with 19 kills, followed by junior Irene Johnson, who had a solid match with 17 kills and 18 digs.

Freshman libero Maddie Hughes was tough defensively, reaching 30 digs for the second time this season.

On Saturday, the Huskies’ offense found kills hard to come by against CMU. In the three-game match, they recorded just 40 kills. Much of this was due to the defensive play of the Chippewas, who had nine team blocks to the Huskies’ zero.

“Central Michigan took advantage of their opportunities,” Gooden said. “They are an experienced team and are one of the best teams on our side of the conference. They played good team volleyball. We definitely got beat tonight by a good team.”

CMU also put a lot of pressure on NIU’s defense with its service game.

Led by outside-hitter Kate Fissel’s four aces, CMU had eight total for the game.

Fissel also went for a game-high 15 kills while adding nine digs.

Baetzel and sophomore Meagan Schoenrock were the only Huskies in double-digit kills, as each of them reached 11 on the night.