The Eastern women’s soccer team has struggled to get their offense going through the first two games this season. The result has been the first 0-2 start since the 1997 season.

The Panthers will look to reverse the trend this weekend when they travel to play in the Northern Illinois Invitational in DeKalb.

The Panthers will open the tournament against the host Huskies at 4 p.m. today. They conclude play on Sunday when they take on Northern Iowa at 1 p.m.

Today’s game will be the first of the season for the Huskies, as well as the first at their newly revamped soccer complex, which has a state-of-the-art artificial surface that has been built to specific International Federation Association of Football regulations.

The Panthers played Purdue in the Boilermakers home opener Tuesday.

After the team’s 5-1 loss, Eastern head coach Tim Nowak talked about the difficulties of playing a team in their first home game.

“It’s never easy to play a team in their home opener,” Nowak said. “(Purdue) came in primed to get a win and were able to take advantage of the mistakes we made.”

The Huskies return 15 letter winners and 10 starters from a team that finished 10-5-5 last season, which was the third best in the Missouri Valley Conference.

Among those returning for the Huskies are junior goalkeeper Lindsey Curnock, who had nine shutouts and was ranked 14th in the nation with a .053 goals against average last year.

Sunday’s game against Northern Iowa will be a match-up of two Panther teams, as well as two struggling offenses. Northern Iowa opened the season with a 5-0 loss at Minnesota.

The team was out shot 38-2 by the Gophers.

The star of Northern Iowa’s offense is sophomore midfielder Chelsie Hochstedler.

Hochstedler was Northern Iowa’s leading scorer as a freshman and took both of the team’s shots on goal in the loss to Minnesota.

Georgia Southern rounds out the four-team field in the Northern Illinois Invitational, which the Huskies are hosting for the second consecutive year. This is the first year Eastern has taken part in the tournament.

The Panthers return home for the first time all season for their home opener against Wright State at 5 p.m. next Friday at Lakeside Field.

Collin Whitchurch can be reached at 581-7944 or at cfwhitchurch@eiu.edu.