After falling to Ball State Friday night, the NIU volleyball team stayed on the road, beating Miami (OH) Saturday to salvage a weekend split.

Faced with the tough challenge of trying to break the Cardinals 32-match home winning streak, NIU coach Todd Kress felt that his Huskies had a good shot at breaking the span, but

his team lost three games to one.

“This was definitely a match of streaks and runs,” said Kress. “They just had a few more in them. This was a winnable match for us though.”

Freshman Tera Lobdell finished the match with a team-high 12 kills while juniors Rena Widboom and Tenisha Wilkins contributed eight and seven kills, respectively.

“We need to start capitalizing when we can and win some games,” said Kress.

Kress had his wishes granted as his Huskies rode out of Miami (OH) with a 4-4 overall record on the year and 1-2 in MAC play.

After the Huskies dropped the first two games to the RedHawks, senior Carrie Blankenship and Widboom stepped up their play to help NIU come from behind and capture the win.

Blankenship finished with 11 kills in the final three games that NIU won, and Widboom came off the bench to rack up 15 kills in the match along with three blocks and a team-high .481 attack percentage.

“Carrie and Rena really provided a spark for us tonight,” said Kress. “Carrie got over a big time hump offensively and that was huge. I don’t remember Rena making any mistakes. She was a force up front and really got us going off the bench.”

Kress felt that his team showed a lot of heart with their come from behind win.

“This was a huge win for us tonight,” Kress said. “To come back from two games down and salvage the win shows the heart this team has. It wasn’t a pretty match, but I really appreciate the way we played.”