After just 13 wins last year, NIU volleyball swept through this weekend’s invitational against three teams Huskie coach Ray Gooden said were likely to make the NCAA Tournament.

The Huskies hosted the four-team Best Western Inn & Suites Invitational. Joining NIU (3-0) was Kansas (2-1), Western Kentucky (1-2) and Liberty (0-3), three teams that went a combined 69-33 last season.

“I know I’ve heard winning cures everything, and winning does cure a lot of stuff, but we also know that though all three teams here are very good teams and all will probably go to the NCAA Tournament, these three teams are not going to be the reason why we go the NCAA Tournament,” Gooden said. “It’s just a good step for us.”

At the end of the weekend, a trio of Huskies were named to the all-tournament team. Senior outside hitter Brooke Dodson, junior outside hitter Tera Lobdell and junior middle blocker Megan Markowski all were named to the team.

Dodson finished with a team-leading 49 kills at the invitational, 21 of them coming in the match against Kansas.

Sophomore setter Marie Zidek finished with 134 assists over the two days.

“I think by doing this and staying focused it really set the tone for us this season,” Dodson said about winning the tournament. “Because we stayed focused, we were able to set a standard for the team and our expectations for the rest of the season, which are very high.”

On Friday, the Huskies started the invitational with a four-game win over Liberty, 30-24, 27-30, 30-17, 30-22. On Saturday, NIU used an extra-long fourth game to finish off defending Sun Belt Conference champion Western Kentucky. After winning the first three games 34-32, 30-19 and 30-22, the Huskies faced losing four times before pulling out a 41-39 win, setting up the match of unbeatens.

“When we went down and they’re up 31-30 with the serve, our focus was stopping them,” Dodson said. “We do a lot of drills in practice to work on those kind of situations and I think we stuck with it very well.”

Against Kansas, NIU went on to win the first two games 30-21 before a nine-point Jayhawk run in the third game ended any thoughts of a three-game sweep.

The fourth game ended on a Markowski kill and a 30-27 win for the Huskies.