Staci Boyce had a career-high 21 kills to lead four Redbirds in double-figures as Illinois State roared back from a first-game loss to overpower Northern Illinois in four games 28-30, 30-24, 30-20, 30-18 in a non-conference volleyball match Wednesday at Redbird Arena.
The Redbirds, 4-8, outhit Northern Illinois .384 to .188 in the match. Erin Jones and Jenny Kabbes also showed their veteran leadership with 19 kills apiece and Amber Rogers chipped-in with a career-high 13 kills from the right side. Illinois State set a four-game Redbird Arena record with 79 kills and setter Kelly Rikli had a career-high 66 set assists, third best ever by a player in a Redbird Arena match.
The Huskies, 8-5, were led in kills by Jen VonderHaar with 15, while Tera Lobdell contributed 13. Lobdell also led NIU in digs with 11.
Kabbes reached a milestone with her 400th career block assist at point 17 in game three. She joins former teammate Kendra Haselhorst as the only players in Redbird history with 400 career block assistsHaselhorst had 482 from 1997 to 2000. Kabbes finished the night with seven, giving her 401 for her career. She is just the 10th player in Missouri Valley Conference history to reach 400 block assists.
Redbird coach Sharon Dingman applauded Kabbes milestone.
Jenny had great ball pursuit as a blocker, said Dingman, who also praised her teams balanced play on offense. Our offense was very, very good tonight. Kelly played as well as she has as a Redbird. Amber didnt play much (last year) as a freshman, but is taking advantage of her opportunities. I just thought we gave a great effort tonight.
NIU coach Ray Gooden was at the opposite end of the spectrum.
Illinois State is a good team and has played some good teams, but I thought this was our poorest effort of the season, said Gooden. We just arent good enough to just rely on hitting and serving.
Game one looked a lot like several of the Redbirds recent unsuccessful efforts. Leading 24-21, the Birds managed just one point out of the next eight and NIU led 27-25 on a kill by Lobdell. Rogers and Kabbes, who had six kills in seven attempts in the game, got the Birds even at 28-28, but a blocking error and a hitting error on the Redbird side gave NIU the game.
Boyce led a .406 Redbird hitting attack in game two with eight kills. ISU had a 22-13 lead before the Huskies trimmed it to 25-21, but Erin Jones came up with a couple of well-placed hits to stop the Huskie comeback.
Games three and four saw the Birds jump out to early leads and never look back as Jones led them with 10 kills over the final two games of the match. Rogers also contributed late for Illinois State with nine kills in the last two games of the night.
Dingman wants her team to continue on an upward spiral.
It was very gratifying to see our effort tonight, said Dingman. The challenge now is consistency.
Illinois State goes back to Missouri Valley Conference play at 2 p.m. Sunday against Indiana State at Redbird Arena.
