Tonight, the women’s volleyball team hopes to compete in front of a sold-out crowd at Victor E. Court.

After succeeding in breaking the attendance record last season against Western Michigan University, NIU is looking to repeat the magic against WMU and break the attendance record, which stands at 612.

Game time is set for 7 p.m.

The Huskies’ biggest home crowd this season was 393 against DePaul. The court seats 800, so there’s plenty of room to improve.

“Volleyball is the one sport where you can make your voice heard from the crowd,” NIU coach Ray Gooden said. “We can hear them up-close and personal and every single voice comes through.”

Getting Victor E. Court full is just the first step for the team. The second step is putting on a show.

After going on a five-match winning streak, NIU lost both its matches last weekend to drop to 5-5 in the MAC. That puts the Huskies in a three-way tie for second place, but still trailing WMU by two matches as the Broncos sit at 7-3.

“We are really preparing for the match,” said Cassie Yates, NIU sophomore middle-blocker. “We get that it’s a big match and we want to do well for the crowd. I love it when there are a lot of people there, it gets everyone pumped up.”

The Broncos have a strong offensive attack that is led by sophomore Michelle Moore. The outside-hitter is leading the MAC’s second best offense with 4.58 kills per game.

“They score a lot of points with their kills,” Gooden said. “Moore is a physical kid who hits at the high point. They have a lot of weapons and we need to get all the points we can get.”

While NIU has lost two in a row, they were hard-fought matches against two strong teams in Kent State and Ohio.

According to Gooden, NIU needs to take the positives from that math and build on them.

“We need to play the ultimate team game,” Gooden said. “We have to play at that level and if we sit there licking our wounds, teams are going to jump all over us.”