After the NIU women’s basketball team’s win Saturday night against Toledo, a reporter had one question for Huskie coach Carol Hammerle.

“Are you just going to play it by ear to see how much Kim Boeding will play next game?”

Boeding, a 6-foot senior, has missed the last nine games because of a viral infection in — what else — her ear.

Seated next to Hammerle, Boeding laughed about the double-edged comment. But, truth has it, Boeding’s situation has been no laughing matter.

Diagnosed with vertigo, which can make you nauseated and throw off your balance, she has not played since Jan. 22 against Central Michigan.

“It’s been a complete learning experience for all of us with what vertigo really is,” Hammerle said. “Tonight we figured we’d give her a try.”

In six minutes of play, Boeding had expected rust on her game with zero points and two rebounds. But her teammates were just happy to have her back on the court.

“It’s always good to have a teammate come back, especially Kim,” said Kristan Knake, the only other senior on the team. “We’ve been together for four years and know each other so well on the court.”

While Boeding has not traveled with NIU on most of the road trips during her time out, she did participate in practices the two days prior to the Toledo game. But with the practices preparing for the Rockets, Boeding said she didn’t go as hard as in a typical practice.

“Little by little we’ve been working her in practice,” Hammerle said. “She needs to get her feet back under her and go from there. We’ve missed her.”

Third on the team in scoring with a 9.6 per game average, she has 153 points on the year in only 16 of her team’s 25 games. With a win like Saturday’s against the MAC’s second best team, NIU looks to be getting out of its runt. Prior to Saturday’s game, the Huskies had lost three of its last four games. But now NIU has topped Toledo, and has Boeding back in the lineup heading into the last game of the regular season, which is Senior Day against Western Michigan. Boeding wants to be able to contribute as much to the team as she can.

“I was a little nervous out there,” she said. “It was great to get back out there though. My whole center of balance is off. I hope I could get some more minutes against Western Michigan and finally start getting back into the flow of things.”