Northern Illinois University’s 5-2 win over Ball State Sunday at the Nelson Tennis Center gave the Huskies their fourth straight win and more impressively, their 18th dual match victory of the season. NIU’s 18 wins are the most for the program in 40 years, since the 1984-85 team won a school record 20 matches.

NIU is now 18-4 on the season and 4-1 in the Mid-American Conference, putting the Huskies atop the West Division halfway through the MAC schedule. NIU has won seven of its last eight matches with the win over Ball State, who handed the Huskies their only loss during that span on March 21 in Muncie.

“I thought we played really well,” said NIU head coach Eric Burns. “It was a really contested doubles point. We played really well in doubles, but they found ways to win points. The singles were great, we fought hard on every court and it was a good overall win for us, especially after the loss down there.”

NIU’s No. 3 doubles pair of Reagan Welch and Jenna Horne scored a 6-3 win and after Ball State took the win at No. 1, the point came down to the second doubles spot where NIU’s Isabella Righi and Lucia Yecora battled BSU’s Sarah Shahbaz and Isabelle Tanjuatco. The Ball State pair took a 5-0 lead in the tiebreaker before NIU scored the next five points. The teams then traded points before the Cardinals clinched the doubles with a 9-7 tiebreaker win to take the set, 7-6.

With Ball State shorthanded, the Huskies earned a forfeit win at No. 6 singles to tie the match, and the fantastic freshman pair of Irmak Budak and Lucia Yecora gave NIU a 3-1 lead with straight set wins at No. 2 and No. 3 singles, respectively. Ball State prevailed at No. 1 singles to pull within 3-2 before junior Nataly Ninova came through with a three-set win, 6-3, 4-6, 6-4 to clinch the NIU victory. Jenna Horne closed out the day with a 6-2, 6-2 win at No. 5 singles to provide the fifth Huskie point.

“Irmak [Budak] rolled and Lu [Yecora] continued to roll,” Burns said. “Lu is a match-up problem for a lot of teams, and she’s been showing she can play just about anywhere in the line-up right now. She was great. Nat [Ninova] gutted out a third set, after a tough second set she was able to regroup and finish that off. Jenna had played her opponent a couple times, so we put her in and she took care of business.”

NIU is next in action on Friday, April 4 with a Noon (CT) match at Bowling Green before returning home on Sunday, April 6 to host Western Michigan.