The longest rivalry for the NIU volleyball team continued Tuesday night, as the Huskies defeated UIC to distinguish them alone in the NIU record books with 16 wins in a row.

This year’s team broke its tie with the 1992 and ’93 teams with a 3-1 victory over the Flames.

Playing more matches against the Flames than any other team in NIU history, NIU (19-4, 13-2 Mid-American Conference) started its first game against UIC (13-14, 4-8 Horizon League) on fire, winning 30-19.

Finishing the second game 27-30, they went on to win the last two games 30-23 and 34-32.

Freshman Tera Lobdell continued her hot play for the Huskies. Finishing with game-highs of 22 kills and 14 defensive digs, she also hit for a .390 attack percentage.

Other notable performances for the Huskies included Jen VonderHaar’s 15 kills and .357 attack percentage, Rena Widboom’s 13 kills and .348 attack percentage and Jenny Bowman’s 59 assists.

NIU produced a .297 team attack percentage compared to the Flames’ .134 percentage. The Huskies also racked up 72 team kills for the game in comparison to UIC’s 57.

“This is a rivalry that we weren’t doing when I first came in (1999),” said coach Todd Kress. “But the coach there, Don August, and I wanted to get this rivalry started again.”

Head coach Todd Kress was happy with the win but looked at the game more as a tune up for Friday’s Senior Day game against Eastern Michigan at Chick Evans Field House.

“The reason we scheduled [UIC] was because we knew we only had that one conference match on Friday,” said Kress. “And we didn’t want to go into Senior Night having played [Saturday against Western Michigan] then not playing again until Friday, because I think a lot of times you’re not ‘game ready.'”