The Northern Illinois volleyball team opened its season at the NIU Comfort Inn & Suites of Rochelle Invitational on Friday night with a split against a pair of in-state opponents, defeating Western Illinois, 3-0, in its first match and falling to Southern Illinois, 3-1, in its second match of the day.
The Huskies (1-1) are now 7-1 in season and home openers under coach Ray Gooden after taking down WIU (0-2), 25-13, 26-24, 25-18, in the Huskies' season-opener on Friday afternoon. NIU hit .443 as a team and out-killed the Leathernecks 46-35.
"I thought the first match as a team was great," Gooden said. "Everybody did some positive things. The first set was great. Allison McGlaughlin did a great job starting us off this season with some good serves and then everyone joined in after that. It was nice to have a good, positive first match with a lot of positive results."
Three Huskies tallied double-figure kills as McGlaughlin led with 13, Meagan Schoenrock had 11, and Cassie Yates had 10. Amanda Tadla paced the offense with 41 assists and added eight digs, while Maddie Hughes led the defense with 13 digs.
In NIU's evening match against the Salukis (2-0), the Huskies once again out-killed their opponent, 60-49, but SIU used an 18-4 blocking advantage to earn the win, 25-22, 28-30, 25-18, 26-24.
"In both matches today SIU got out-killed, but made it up in blocks," Gooden said. "They played a little bit smarter than we did tonight and used their experience well."
