In order to move ahead in the Northwest Athletic Conference, the North Idaho College volleyball team went back to its roots, for a couple of weekends at least, to test itself against the best of the best in the NJCAA.

Successful? Maybe not on the scoreboard.

But in order to prepare for the conference season, we’ll see.

AFTER GOING 3-3 in the season opening NWAC Crossover tournament, NIC ventured to the Crystal Inn-vitational, going 1-3 with a win over Casper College. The losses came against tournament host Salt Lake, Snow College and Missouri State-West Plains, All three are ranked in the top 10 of this week’s NJCAA poll.

“I was happy with how we played,” said NIC coach Kelsey Stanley, in her third season as coach. “Snow has a really good chance of winning the region and they were a challenge for us. Salt Lake is always very good.”

Out of tournament play, last Thursday NIC faced rival College of Southern Idaho, ranked second in the NJCAA poll, falling in straight sets. The match was put together a little over a week before it was played.

“Originally, we weren’t going to play them and we called them the week before the match,” Stanley said. “They said we could do it if it was Thursday (Sept. 8) at 7. I’m happy that we got the chance to play them, especially to play them in front of their crowd. It was a good experience for our girls.”

CSI won the match 25-15, 25-20, 25-16.

“They’re No. 2 in the nation, and you can just tell they’re on a whole other level right now,” Stanley said. “They’ve got a quicker offense than we do.”

As far as the tournament at CSI, NIC saw Salt Lake and Snow again, with NIC taking Salt Lake to five sets after being swept the week before. Snow won in three sets.

“If we can play against those teams, we’ll be just fine,” said Stanley, whose team also faced Northwest College (which received 12 votes in this week’s poll) and Utah State-Eastern in Twin Falls. “Overall, I was really nervous and thinking ‘what was I doing?’ scheduling these teams. Eight of the nine we’ve faced were in the top 20 in the nation.”

NIC closed out the nonconference schedule by beating Utah State-Eastern in four games.

“Once we get back and start league, we’ll be ready for the challenge,” Stanley said. “I didn’t think we were ready in the NWAC tournament. But I’m happy with where we’re at right now. Our consistency against Utah State-Eastern was getting a lot better and we cut down on our errors. We weren’t making a lot of errors, and were really coming together as a team.”

NIC (5-10) returns home tonight to face Columbia Basin College of Pasco, Wash., tonight at 6 p.m. in the conference opener for the Cardinals. Columbia Basin (7-9) beat Treasure Valley on Sept. 7 in Pasco.

Stanley said sophomore middle blocker Brooke Bell and sophomore setter Brittany Gay have been sparking the offense thus far.

“Brooke is at a whole other level right now,” Stanley said. “She should be able to score at any time. Brittany, she’s really smart and doing a good job of putting everything together. They’re really hard to stop.”

NIC will play in the East Region against Spokane, Wenatchee Valley, Columbia Basin, Walla Walla, Blue Mountain, Yakima Valley, Treasure Valley and Big Bend, playing each other twice. NIC will conclude the week at Big Bend of Moses Lake on Friday and at Walla Walla on Saturday.

“The only team I’ve seen so far is Blue Mountain,” Stanley said. “Every else was in a different pool or bracket (at the Crossover tournament Aug. 27-28). I really have no clue what to expect. To be honest, my expectations for the first tournament was that we’re going to do fine. But I don’t think we’re just going to walk through and win this either. There’s a few teams that are really good and play a really good brand of volleyball. We’re just trying to have the girls stay on their toes. After last week, I’m confident with how we’re going to do, but there’s going to be some teams that will surprise us. We just want the girls to come out and play their hardest.”

Jason Elliott is a sports writer for the Coeur d’Alene Press. He can be reached by telephone at (208) 664-8176, Ext. 2020 or via email at jelliott@cdapress.com. Follow him on Twitter @JEPressSports.