March 30, 2007

DeKalb, Ill. - NIU (4-5, 0-2 MAC) only has one match this weekend, an in-state contest against Southern Illinois University (6-4) at 1pm on Saturday, March 31, 2007 in Carbondale, Ill. The Huskies are 3-1 on the year versus Illinois schools and will look to improve to 4-1 as they head back to Mid-American Conference play for the remainder of the year.

NIU head coach Ryun Ferrell feels that his team's attitude adjustment is complete. Now, it's just a matter of getting a few favorable bounces here and there for the results to show the success of the adjustment.

"[The attitude change has] been fine," Ferrell said. "They're working incredibly hard. We just have to get over that hump. If we do it once I think we will be fine. It's been tough because we're right there. We're competitive, we're fighting hard, there's just not much more that we can do other than what we're doing."

One change that Ferrell and the Huskies have been working on is a shift of their doubles play focus. They had been working on singles and doubles fairly equally in practice throughout the season, but recent doubles struggles have changed that.

"For a while there we were splitting time between singles and doubles about fifty-fifty," said Ferrell. "Now we've gone back to 100 percent doubles because we've lost four doubles points in a row. We have got to get that done. When you win the doubles point 60 percent of the time you win the match. I feel if we can get that done our singles is strong enough just by the way that we play. If we had that doubles point under our belt our confidence would be a lot bigger and better."

NIU will look to take advantage of a fresh SIU team. The Salukis hired new head coach René Vidal over the off-season and only had one player return from last year's group. With such an unfamiliar group, Ferrell's familiar foe will have mixed results as they try to get accustomed to each other.

"I have competed against SIU for seven-plus years and now it's a totally new team," Ferrell said. "They have a new coach, new team and are going to have up and down results. We will see what [Head Coach René Vidal] can do and what we can do."

-NIU-