NIU volleyball coach Ray Gooden returns to his old stomping grounds tonight when the Huskies visit Loyola in the final week of their three-week road trip.

NIU (3-8) begins its match against the Ramblers (8-3) at 7 p.m. at Alumni Gym in Chicago.

A third-year NIU coach, Gooden served as top assistant coach for the men’s and women’s volleyball programs at Loyola from 1999-2001 before taking his current post.

Winners of their last seven in a row, Gooden said Loyola will be a confident team heading into the non-conference meeting.

“We’re good at home, and they’re good at home,” Gooden said. “They have a great home court advantage. If you look at their stats, they win 80-90 percent of their matches at home each year.”

After starting the year with three losses, the Ramblers have rolled off eight straight wins, including a five-game defeat of No. 9 Illinois at home. The victory was Loyola’s first ever against a top-10 team.

One point of focus for the Huskies in the match will be service and attack errors, areas that were magnified late in games last weekend against Bradley and Northern Iowa.

“We are just giving up free points on serves and bad attacking errors,” senior outside hitter Tera Lobdell said. “Their gym is hard to play in, so we just need to put pressure on them to make plays instead of us giving points to them.”

Despite being short-handed with injuries, the Huskies’ blocking has improved. NIU totaled 19 team blocks against South Florida and Bradley last weekend compared to only 8.5 for its opponents.

Senior middle blocker Megan Markowski made progress over the weekend, playing five minutes against Bradley after sitting out five matches with a foot injury. However, Gooden said the status of Markowski and injured freshman outside hitter Laura Baetzel (shoulder tendonitis) are still day-to-day.