The University of Northern Iowa and Drake University swept the SIUC women’s volleyball team’s home winning streak out the doors of Davies Gymnasium last weekend.

The Salukis were riding a four-game home winning streak prior to last weekend’s conference losses against Northern Iowa and Drake.

The spikers lost to the Panthers 15-8, 15-2 and 15-4 and fared no better against Drake, losing in three matches 15-7, 15-13 and 15-6.

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At 10-6, SIUC remains at fourth place in the Missouri Valley Conference, with four league matches remaining in the regular season. Both Northern Iowa and Drake swept SIUC in the 95 season.

SIUC was held to single digits in scoring against Northern Iowa to go along with negative attack percentages in all three games.

SIUC volleyball coach Sonya Locke said the lack of defense played a key factor in the loss to the Panthers. However, Locke remains optimistic toward the rest of the season.

It’s a matter of playing defense and I knew that was an area that we had to do well in and we didn’t, Locke said. Where do we go from here we can’t go nowhere but up.

We got really frustrated and couldn’t pull ourselves out of it, said senior middle blocker Kelly Parke. It wasn’t that they (Northern Iowa) were so wonderful, we just beat ourselves.

Perhaps SIUC’s most important matches of the season take place this weekend when the spikers go on the road against Illinois State and Bradley. The match against ISU may prove to be a key battle for fourth place.

Bradley stands at 7-8 in league action while the Redbirds are right on the heels of the Salukis at 9-6.

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Locke said facing stiff competition such as Northern Iowa and Drake will not play a factor in the matches against Bradley and ISU.

Middle blocker Jodi Revoir said beating both Bradley and Illinois State is very important in determining how the Salukis finish in the conference race.

We don’t want to finish at the bottom of the conference, she said. We don’t deserve to be at the bottom because we are a much better team than that.

Despite back to back losses at home, Locke said she does not consider last weekend’s performance much of a letdown.

Two losses does not make the season yet, Locke said. If this was at the end of the season when we had to win one I wouldn’t even want to talk about it.

We are at the point right now where we need to be splitting weekend matches. We have to go in as if every match means we are out. Every match from here on out gives us more of an edge or takes a little bit of it away.