The NIU volleyball team accumulated individual honors this weekend but the most important honor, the MAC championship, eluded the team as they lost to the No. 1 seed Ohio Friday night.

The Huskies (16-17 overall) finished the season with a 28-30, 11-30, 30-27, 30-32 loss to the No. 21 nationally ranked Bobcats (27-2) in the quarter final of the MAC championship.

“We went into the match knowing that we could play tough against Ohio,” NIU head coach Ray Gooden said. “We played as good as you can without winning the match.”

The Huskies held a 25-20 lead against the favored Bobcats in the first game of the match, but couldn’t find a way to finish the game.

“We were really excited about game one,” sophomore outside hitter Amy Ward said. “We were freaked out about beating Ohio, and then we let the game get away from us.”

After the momentum blow in game one, the Huskies suffered a devastating 11-30 game two loss.

“We didn’t have the same energy as in game one,” Ward said. “We went to the locker room and, realized that players career’s and our season could be over.”

The Huskies took that realization and turned it into a 30-27 game three victory, but couldn’t hold on, losing 30-32 in game four.

“Game three and four were nail bitters,” Gooden said. “We had a couple of chances to win game four, but couldn’t pull it off.”

Junior middle blocker Kate McCullagh led the Huskies offensively with 23 kills, while senior middle blocker Corinne Walsh and Ward added an additional 13 and 10 kills, respectively.

McCullagh finished the season with an average of 5.38 kills per game, good enough to rank her sixth in the nation.

The Woodstock native also tallied 667 kills in the season, putting her in first place in the MAC for kills and second in the NIU record books for kills in a single season.

The 6-foot middle blocker was also honored this weekend as she earned a spot onto the All-Mid-American Conference Second-Team.

“I’m thinking more about the team, but I want to get stronger for next season,” McCullagh said. “I would love to get 700-plus kills next year.”

Junior libero Gina Guide also found her way into the NIU record books this weekend as she set the all time school record for career digs.

Guide passed the former mark of 1,455 digs set by Nikki Kzoak by recording 20 digs on Friday to give her a career total of 1,472 digs.

Freshman setter Jenny Dziubla also was honored this weekend as she earned a spot on to the All-Freshman Team.

Dziubla dished out 1,492 assists, recorded 243 digs and produced 71 kills over her freshman season.

The Huskies came into the season as a young team facing many challenges, but came through with a 16-17 overall record and a 9-7 record in the MAC.

“We knew it was a young team coming into the season and we were going to experience peaks and valleys,” fourth-year coach Ray Gooden said. “We really started to play some good volleyball at the end of the season when we need it.”