With just 20 kills to become the all-time MAC career leader in kills, NIU’s Tera Lobdell and her teammates needed some way to track her pace to history.

Looking through her locker before the NIU volleyball game against Toledo, freshman Laura Baetzel came across a bag of Applejacks from earlier in the day and suddenly had an answer.

“We all knew that if we tried to count, we’d lose track,” Baetzel said. “So I figured I’d fill up a bag with twenty Applejacks and I’d eat one every time Tera got a kill.”

And in Games 1 and 2 of the four game match, Baetzel constantly kept having to reach into the bag as Lobdell collected seven kills in each.

But that still left six Applejacks sitting in the bag for Game 3. They sat in that bag for less than half the game.

Lobdell came out and had five of the team’s first 10 points, leaving the final Applejack waiting for its trip to Baetzel’s stomach.

Down 10-12, setter Marie Zidek set Lobdell, but the ball ricocheted off a double block back to NIU. Frantically, Zidek bumped the ball up just high enough for Lobdell to put a swing on it. Around the block, back left corner, the record was now solely owned by Lobdell.

“I just held up that last Applejack in front of everybody and ate it,” said Baetzel with a laugh. “But when I did everybody knew she had broken the record.”

Ziploc bag now empty of Applejacks, and now the top killer in MAC history, Lobdell then went about trying help her team knock off Toledo.

Through the end of Game 3 and all of 4, the senior outside hitter added to her new record and reached the 30-kill mark for the first time this season, ending the match with 31.

“I didn’t really focus on it when I broke the record because we were in the middle of trying to win,” Lobdell said. “And at that time that’s what mattered to me more.

“It’s a great accomplishment. I’m just really glad I had a chance to be [at NIU] and break records.”

When asked about what it was like knowing she had the record and was the top killer ever to step on a court in the MAC, Lobdell simply shrugged and smiled.

But her coach, Ray Gooden, was a little more enthusiastic.

“Ever since I’ve been here, Tera has always had the role of being the dominant killer on the team,” Gooden said. “And she has just kept getting better and better, and I think [this record] shows that.”