With a one-point lead in the fifth game, the NIU women’s volleyball team needed one more big play to knock off Kent State on Saturday. That play came from Corinne Walsh.

Getting a set from Marie Zidek, Walsh put down her ninth kill of the night to give the Huskies (7-10 overall, 2-2 MAC) their first winning streak of the season.

“Corrine got up there and just mashed that ball, and we all just started jumping around like crazy people,” NIU middle blocker Kate McCullagh said. “It was just the greatest way to win seeing all the faces in the crowd so disappointed.”

The victory over KSU (6-5, 3-1) was the third straight win for the Huskies after beating Chicago State on Tuesday and a sweep of Buffalo (7-9, 0-3) on Friday.

Behind double digit kills from Tera Lobdell and McCullagh, and a defense that held Buffalo to a .044 hitting percentage, NIU got its first conference victory of the season 30-19, 30-23, 30-27.

“We did a good job of slowing down some of their attacks tonight,” coach Ray Gooden said. “We also controlled the ball off our block pretty well and won a lot of long rallies which really helped us out a lot.”

Yet NIU didn’t get much time to celebrate their first back-to-back victories as they quickly hopped on a bus to go face another MAC foe, Kent State, the next day.

NIU took the first two games from the Golden Flashes 30-25 and 30-26, and was winning game three 24-21, but fell short of the sweep when KSU went on a seven-point run to take the game 30-26.

Again NIU had the lead close to the end of game four, but could not muster enough to hold off KSU, who forced a game five.

In game five, neither team could gain more than a one-point lead until Walsh put down the game-winning kill.

“[This weekend] was awesome,” McCullagh said. “Especially with these victories coming away from home, that just made them that much bigger, and we know we can look in each other’s eyes and just know we are going to win.”