DeKALB — The NIU volleyball team lost to Central Michigan University 3-1 on Friday evening, extending their losing streak to three games and dropping to a 6-5 record on the season.

The first set was close with a total of 12 lead changes. The biggest lead throughout the entirety of the first set was three when CMU led 3-0 and NIU led 13-10. Eventually, CMU would come back to take the lead 20-19. They would never lose the lead from this point on, eventually winning the set 26-24. 

The second set was the most exciting of them all. The two teams went back and forth early on with it being tied 11-11 midway through the set before CMU went on a 6-0 run to take a lead of 17-11. With the score 20-14 in CMU favor, the Huskies went on a 6-0 run of their own to tie the game 20-20. From this point on, the two teams traded points before CMU won the set with a score of 29-27. 

Head volleyball coach Ray Gooden spoke on what he thought was the biggest difference on why NIU wasn’t able to win either of the first two sets that could have gone either way.

“Execution, I think with the things we can control we’re going to continue to work on and get better because we had the oppourtunites we just have to take advantage of them,” Gooden said.

The third set was dominated by NIU. NIU got off to an early lead with a score of 10-4. The Huskies would never look back and led by a decent margin the rest of the set, winning with a score of 25-14. 

In the fourth set, CMU wanted to return the favor to the Huskies by getting off to an early lead of their own. CMU took a 14-9 lead after going on a 5-0 run to do so. This is where the momentum completely shifted back in CMU favor as NIU was never able to get back in the game. CMU went on to win the set 25-15 and the match 3-1. 

Junior outside hitter Katie Jablonski had 19 kills, freshman middle blocker Charli Atiemo had 10 kills and senior middle blocker Jasmine Kemp had nine kills. 

The volleyball team gets a second swing at Central Michigan at 5 p.m. Saturday in Mount Pleasant, Michigan.