The new Mideast Regional volleyball rankings were released on Monday, and to no one’s surprise the Huskies jumped one spot from 11th to 10th. It is the highest regional ranking for an NIU volleyball team ever.

“I am really happy about it,” Huskie head coach Pete Waite said. “This is higher than we have ever been and really helps our chances to get an NCAA (Tournament) bid.”

“It is going to get difficult to move any higher now. We do not play any of the teams above us. So, if we win, we can maybe stay where we are or jump up a place, but if we lose, we can really drop far.”

Waite also pointed out that the team does not play any more matches against ranked opponents until its trip to California later this month.

“San Luis Obispo is ranked regionally, and Long Beach State is ranked nationally,” Waite said. “If we beat those teams, that would be tremendous, but if we dropped to those teams, I don’t think it would affect us in our regional rankings. The key is going to be how we are after that Long Beach match because we play them first.”

The Huskies are coming off a four-set win over Western Illinois on Saturday. It was the team’s 10th victory in a row, and it had its share of positives and negatives on both sides of the ball

“Offensively, it was one of our best performances all season,” Waite said. “The hitting percentages show that (NIU’s .340 to WIU’s .246), but more importantly we scored when we needed to score.”

The team, however, did have a rough time containing Western’s two big offensive threats in Kim Phillips and Rachel Horvat.

“Defensively, we had a lot of trouble stopping them,” Waite said. “They hit the ball very hard, and it was tough for our players to cradle it without having it shank off the side out of bounds. They created a lot of side-outs.”

The team will now shift its attention to a home weekend in which Eastern Illinois will invade DeKalb on Friday and Wright State will roll in on Saturday. Both matches will be at Chick Evans Field House and first serve each night is at 7 p.m.