By Jewel Della Valle

There’s no place like home for the Huskies, who extended their home winning streak to four with a sweep of Rhode Island Tuesday night. Not only are the Huskies undefeated at home, but the team lost just one of the 13 games played at Solomon Court this season.

Now 7-9 after Tuesday’s win, Northeastern looks forward to settling into conference play this weekend. The Huskies have endured a grueling schedule at the start of this season, playing 16 matches in the last four weeks with the majority of them on the road, but now looks forward to seven of the remaining 15 matches at home.

“Hopefully the slower pace will help us,” said head coach Ken Nichols. “We’ll be able to spend some more time developmentally as opposed to strategically and bring some people along. The future looks very, very bright.”

In game one of Tuesday night’s match the Rams kept up with Northeastern until a third of the way through the game. With a tie at 11, Northeastern took the lead and never looked back, going on a 13-4 run to make it 25-15 and won the game 30-21.

In game two, URI warmed up a bit, jockeying with Northeastern for the lead until the Huskies broke an 8 tie on a long volley that ended in URI hitting the ball out of play. After junior outside hitter Lauren DeTurk solidified the lead at 10-8 with a kill, Northeastern kept it up for the rest of the game, winning 30-22.

“We came in with confidence and we served really well, so we were able to feel comfortable on the court so that made us able to go out and just bring it,” said senior captain Kira Batura.

The Huskies got a bit too comfortable in game three, letting URI take an 11-10 lead before breaking out of a tie and taking the 14-12 lead. The team had as much as a seven-point advantage, but let the Rams get close again at the end of the game before taking the 30-26 win.

“We just let off of them, we just expected to win again,” DeTurk said. “I don’t think we were working as hard as the first two games.”

DeTurk posted her fourth double-double of the season with a match-high 12 kills and match-high 19 digs. Freshman setter Britney Brown, who was named Colonial Athletic Association Rookie of the Week for the week ending Sept. 16, had a match-high 22 assists, and Batura contributed eight kills along with 15 digs.

Northeastern hosts pre-season favorite Hofstra Saturday at 1 p.m. at Solomon Court and will travel to Harvard to take on the Crimson at 4 p.m. Sunday.