DeKALB | In sports, sometimes its not enough to grab the lead. You have to maintain it.

The NIU volleyball team learned that the hard way Thursday night, after coming out on fire in its first set against Western Michigan but dropped the following three, with final scores of 25-16, 22-25, 23-25 and 20-25.

“We played great volleyball,” said NIU head coach Ray Gooden. “We challenged them and we won the first set. In the end it was just disappointing, because we put pressure on Western Michigan but we just couldn’t finish it.”

After winning by a nine point margin in set one, the Huskies (13-13, 7-6 MAC) had an inexplicable slow start to begin the second set.

The Broncos took the lead early with a score of 5-1, and the Huskies struggled to catch up. Though they were able to accomplish that when they tied the game 7-7, they were never able to grab the lead for themselves.

Sets three and four opened up with the Huskies grabbing the quick advantage by scoring fast and early.

However, the Broncos (19-9, 11-2 MAC) always knew how to respond, and countered with moves the Huskies had no answers for. Though they trailed in the beginning, WMU knew how to finish strong.

“We had a big lead in the fourth,” Gooden said. “We just relied too much on scoring to kill as opposed to doing other things, and Western Michigan just ended up making a few better plays than we did.”

Though the Huskies were not able to come out with a win last night, they will get a second chance to tip their now even record in either direction this afternoon as they take on the Bowling Green State University Falcons at 3 p.m.

In order to maintain their winning season this far, they will have to pull of a win.
“I know that Bowling Green is a really physical team,” Gooden said. “They’re a very good blocking team. We’re going to have to be really smart with how we attack the ball and be very conscious that they’re playing very good volleyball right now.”

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