Loyola’s eight-match winning streak came to an end Tuesday when the NIU women’s volleyball team took down the host Ramblers in straight games Tuesday at Loyola.

Behind the double team of Tera Lobdell and Kate McCullagh, who had 16 and 17 kills respectively, the Huskies (4-8) had their second-highest hitting percentage of the season (.279). The 30-28, 30-28, 30-27 victory took out Loyola (8-4), which came off a victory over then-10th-ranked Illinois just a week ago.

“We really played at the top of our game,” McCullagh said. “We came in really needing a win and for the first time we played solid in every aspect of the game and showed how good we can be.”

After being tied at 10-10, the first game was neck-and-neck until NIU, down 21-24, rattled off four-straight points behind setter Marie Zidek to win Game 1.

In the second game, the Huskies trailed for most of it and didn’t take the lead until a Loyola attack error put the Huskies up 18-17. But the lead didn’t last as the Ramblers took five of the next six points to open a 22-19 lead. Once again, the Huskies came back and got the final point after Loyola server Katie Prechel put her serve in the net.

“We talked on Monday about finishing games,” said NIU coach Ray Gooden, who was an assistant at Loyola before he came to DeKalb. “We have been putting ourselves in spots to win games, but just haven’t finished them. We needed to work on that, and tonight, we did a much better job.”

The third game saw 10 ties and four lead changes before NIU eventually took the lead at 22-17 and never gave it back.

“This was the match that will give us some momentum,” McCullagh said. “We finally realized our record wasn’t so good, and we finally did something about it tonight.”