Now knowing what needs to happen to make the MAC tournament, the NIU volleyball team holds its destiny in its hands.

NIU (13-15, 6-10 MAC) is tied with Western Michigan for the last seed in the MAC tournament with a 6-10 conference record, followed by Miami (Ohio) at 5-11. There are several scenarios that will allow the Huskies to move on to the MAC tourney.

If NIU goes 2-0 against Toledo and Western Michigan in its last two games, NIU is in.

If the Huskies lose to Toledo and beat Western Michigan, NIU will experience the MAC tournament.

If Western Michigan wins both of its remaining games, then it will take NIU’s place in the tourney.

Now, here is the weird twist, if NIU beats Toledo and loses to Western Michigan and WMU loses to Bowling Green and beats NIU, then Miami (Ohio) would get the last spot if they beat Akron and Buffalo.

After all of this confusing scenario talk, there were two matches that the Huskies took part in this weekend.

NIU traveled to Ball State and allowed the Cardinals to extend their conference home winning streak to 50 matches in a row. Ball State won in four games with a final of 30-27, 30-17, 30-32 and 30-23.

One bright spot was Tera Lobdell, who had 14 kills, running her streak to 14 consecutive matches with double-digit kills.

There were also three Huskies who had 20 or more digs each. Melissa Benson had a career-high 26 digs, while Tenisha Wilkins added 21, and Lobdell pitched in with 22.

“We had a lot of long rallies tonight,” coach Ray Gooden said. “We touched the ball a lot better on the block and we got ourselves into better position to dig the ball. The problem is that we’re not getting the kills when we need to score points, and that has been the case all year. We’re not getting the points when we need to.”

At Victor E. Court on Sunday, the Huskies took care of Bowling Green in four games with a final of 30-24, 20-30, 33-31 and 30-23.

NIU had a season-high 78 kills with five Huskies in double digits, including Rena Widboom and Alex Hofmann, who had 16 and 15 kills respectively. Lobdell also had her 15th consecutive match with double-digit kills.

The Huskies had a .321 hitting percentage, .130 higher than their season team average.

Jenny Rohren and Kerri Royer each had 33 assists in the win.

The seniors they would like to go to the MAC Tournament one last time. Having been there before, Wilkins knows what it takes to get there.

“As far as motivation goes, a lot of times, some people are pushing to get into the tournament,” Wilkins said. “When you are young, you can hear all that you want to, but until you actually go through it, that’s when you actually get an understanding of what it really means.”