Going into the Wildcat Fall Invitational at Northwestern University, NIU women’s tennis coach Patti Henderson knew her netters were going to run into some top notch talent. After all, three squads in the four-team field are considered Top 25 programs.

However, Henderson was hoping her Huskies would have performed a tad better. Overall, NIU picked up nine victories in 33 matches and Henderson thought the crew could have racked up a few more triumphs.

“Going in I knew this would be a difficult tournament, and for the most part I thought we did well,” Henderson stated. “However, I don’t think the players gave 100 percent. Many of the players knew that they weren’t expected to win in some instances and rather than try and prove the opponent wrong, they fell into the trap of accepting defeat.”

NIU’s top player Jenny Karges put forth a tremendous effort at the three-day event, finishing a very respectable third. She opened action by downing Wisconsin’s Marjon Copier 6-4, 7-5 and went on to win the quarter final match over Hilde Otterman of Alabama, 6-3, 6-3.

Karges fell 6-4, 6-3 to UW’s Marija Neubauer in the semifinals and then took third after the ‘Cats’ Joanna Feria retired from competition.

Next up for the Huskies is a 9 a.m. meeting Thursday with Xavier University at the West Campus Courts in DeKalb.