Winning the MAC regular season championship was a big goal for the NIU volleyball team, but many goals have still yet to be obtained with the conference tournament starting today.

“It’s a nice accomplishment and I’m very proud of the kids,” said coach Todd Kress. “Its been a tremendous year, but the nice thing about it is that it’s still not over and we still have volleyball, and we still have goals to be attained and I think we still can go further with this whole thing.”

As a reward for their 15-3 first-place finish in conference, the Huskies obtained home court advantage throughout the MAC conference tournament. With single elimination and an automatic berth to the NCAA tournament at stake, NIU has high hopes

Starting tonight at 7 p.m. NIU will take on number eight seed Toledo. The Rockets come into Chick Evans Field House with a 10-8 MAC record and 17-10 mark overall. Toledo is coming off of a 3-0 win over Bowling Green on Saturday.

“Nothing that has happened up until this point really matters,” said Kress. “Everybody is zero and zero, we start the season all over again. It’s a little three game tournament or however you want to look at it. Anything can happen on any given night.”

While NIU has defeated Toledo in both of its meetings this year, this third game will not be handed to the Huskies despite winning the conference.

“It was one of the goals that we have looked to attain in winning the regular season title,” said outside hitter Tenisha Wilkins. “But we definitely have not relaxed. We look at playoffs as a new season. It’s always hard to beat a team three times in a row, so they are going to be gunning for us.”

NIU’s defensive specialists, Coley Johnsen, Jen Scarpino and Brooke Dodson will need to combat the Rocket servers, who rank first in the conference in service aces.

However, Toledo’s defensive specialists will need to step up its play, as they are at the bottom with the worst digs per game average in the MAC.

NIU suffered a minor setback Monday as sparingly used right side hitter Amanda Newlin went down in practice with an injury to her finger that needed stitches. She is doubtful for today’s game.

“It was just a fluke accident,” cited Wilkins.

One advantage of being the No. 1 seed is that the Huskies have been given what coach Kress calls a favorable bracket.

With number two and three seeded Ball State and Bowling Green on the opposite side, the upset-minded Western Michigan Broncos have also been placed away from NIU.

Western Michigan defeated both Ball State and NIU this past weekend just to make the tournament and are on a roll. Ball State, along with Eastern Michigan and the Broncos were the only teams to beat the Huskies this year.

“If we were the two or three seeds it is definitely a tougher bracket on that side,” said Kress. “But it doesn’t matter unless we come out and play good volleyball and take advantage of our number one seed. You can look at the draw and say, ‘Wow, Northern has a nice path to the final.’ But it doesn’t matter unless we play quality volleyball.”

While the Huskies were nip and tuck at the end of the season to be the sole MAC champions, they have achieved what it set out for, though they hope that more lies on the horizon for this team.

“It’s nice winning the regular season championship trophy outright,” said Kress. “Its nice having our name as the only one on that trophy and no one else is sharing it with us. And now we want to win the conference tournament, and it’s nice being at home with a chance to do that.”