Northern Illinois University is heading to Charleston after outscoring EIU women’s soccer five to one in the last two years.
The last time EIU beat NIU was back in 1996 in Charleston. Since that game, they have met seven times with NIU winning six of those times alongside one tie.
Eastern wants to be better defensively than the last time they played. Eastern was outshot 18-4 last year and have been outshot in all but one game this season. Junior defender Kya Trejo said that a good offense can lead to a good defense.
“I think part of not having to defend so much is being able to attack more,” Trejo said. “We’ve been working on our defense, and I think defensively we’re really strong this year, but also offensively we’re really strong. When you combine the two, I feel like just in general you have more success.”
Eastern does not want to live in the past. Trejo said that it is a good motivation booster, but they are not trying to win the game just because of a losing streak against a team.
Eastern also has some momentum coming into this game. Even though the team lost to Indiana University Indianapolis on Thursday, they are still going to take the momentum from the five goals they scored before that.
One of those goals came from junior midfielder Kate Germano and three coming from sophomore forward Alex Tetteh. Germano said that the luck just went her way on her goal, but she is going to take that momentum forward.
“This team feels like the best team that I’ve been on for the past two years,” said Germano. “So you want to prove yourself in that sense, because I know we can succeed. It’s just a matter of doing it and proving it.”
Even if Eastern has a new and improved team, NIU is returning with a lot of fire power. EIU head coach Dirk Bennett said NIU was able to wear Eastern down offensively, and that they’ve only got better since last year.
Bennett mentioned Illinois State University transfer junior forward Kelsi McLaughlin. He said that she was one of Illinois State’s best players last year, and she has already made an impact at NIU, scoring two goals already.
McLaughlin is joining a team that got all their star scorers back from last year, including three who scored against Eastern. Those scorers are senior Lea Gruennagel, sophomore Tyra King and sophomore Isabel Struble. Eastern is going to have a lot to deal with on the offensive side of NIU.
If Eastern wants to go into conference play with a non-losing record, they are going to have to dig deep to make that happen, as a loss to NIU on Sunday makes that unreachable. Either way, EIU is happy with the progress they have made but are hoping it can be enough to beat NIU.
Patrick Schmitz can be reached at 581-2812 or at pfschmitz@eiu.edu.
