After playing a sluggish match Friday, the NIU volleyball team came out Saturday and dominated one of the conference’s better teams.

Toledo, 12-7, was swept by the Huskies. Despite the scores of 30-24, 30-21, 30-21, NIU played with intense emotion and determination, said junior outside hitter Tenisha Wilkins.

“Toledo is a very emotional team,” Wilkins said. “We knew that if we didn’t come out strong that they could hurt us. We are also an emotional team, though, and we came out tonight and showed that.”

Wilkins had an enormous weekend, finishing with 37 kills and 27 digs. Rena Widboom had 12 kills in each match, and set a new school record for hitting percentage with .800, and had 12 kills on 15 attempts. Jenny Bowman played another great weekend, ending with 92 assists, 18 digs and 8 kills.

Tera Lobdell continued her stellar first season by tallying 21 kills and 29 digs, including 19 on Friday night against Central Michigan.

After playing on the road for three of four weekends, NIU enjoyed being home and really took it to Toledo.

“Toledo is a team that doesn’t hold back talking trash,” said Widboom. “We hate playing them, and they are a rival of ours. We wanted to come out and dominate them like we did on their home court, and we did that.”

On Friday, the Huskies came out a little flat, but defeated Central Michigan 30-24, 30-23, 28-30, 30-20. NIU had a chance to sweep the Chippewas, but couldn’t finish them off as the Chippewas took Game 3.

With the weekend wins, NIU improved to 12-4 overall, and 9-2 in the Mid-American Conference. The Huskies have now won nine in a row, and don’t show signs of slowing down, as Saturday’s match was one of their best, said head coach Todd Kress.

“I knew if we executed a game plan tonight we’d play well,” said Kress. “However, I didn’t anticipate we’d execute a game plan so well. It was impressive. I thought it was our best quality win of the year. We made a very good team look average.”