As if the NIU women’s volleyball team didn’t have enough momentum from winning 10 in a row, they added to that streak with two impressive victories over some of the conference’s elite.

With Kent State and Akron visiting the Chick Evans Field House this weekend, coach Todd Kress knew his team, despite their recent success, would have something to prove, especially against MAC East leading Akron, and they did.

“It was a big win, but I don’t want to blow it out of proportion,” said Kress. “It’s still early in the conference season and it’s still a good chance that we could meet them down the stretch.

“They are a scrappy team and I just had fun watching them play. We were a little out of sync [in the third game], but we rebounded well in the fourth game. Anytime you knock off the top team in the East it’s a big win.”

The Golden Flashes of Kent State provided a tough test for the Huskies on Friday as they came out and won Game 1, stayed close in Game 3, and almost had Game 4.

However, a win is a win. The Huskies won in four games and showed great resiliency as they overcame a 29-26 deficit in Game 4 to rally with five straight points to take the game and match, 25-30, 30-28, 30-20 and 31-29.

NIU’s balanced offense saw Tenisha Wilkins and Tera Lobdell, both of whom have played well as of late, struggle. Lobdell finished hitting at .146 on Friday and .000 on Saturday. Wilkins hit -.190 on Friday, and .276 on Saturday.

Despite NIU’s outside hitters’ performances, NIU got great play out of their middle blockers for the weekend.

VonderHaar tallied 28 kills in the two matches, and Widboom continued her recent dominance with 30 kills while hitting over .400, again. She attributes her recent success to her teammates.

“I’m getting great passes from my teammates and converting,” said Widboom.

On Saturday, NIU came out and dominated the Zips by winning the match in four games, 30-21, 30-18, 27-30 and 30-22. NIU continued its struggle to close out teams with a sweep, but that doesn’t matter to coach Kress.

“As long as we win, I don’t care,” said Kress. “If we win 50-48 in Game 5, that’s fine with me. As long as we play well, learn something and get the W.”

Another bright spot for the Huskies was the play of Carrie Blankenship. The senior piled up 17 kills and 20 digs this weekend. Blankenship was happy with the pair of wins, and to get out of this tiresome week with three wins.

“I think it was a long week,” said Blankenship. ” It takes a lot out of a team to play a tough match that goes five games against Illinois State and then to play two tough teams in that same week and its hard to get up for every match. We knew tonight that you had to work to win and we came out really good tonight.”