Women’s Soccer | July 31
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DEKALB, Ill. — The Northern Illinois University women’s soccer team returned to the practice field on Tuesday, July 30 as the team ramps up for the 2024 season. NIU will play its lone exhibition match at the NIU Soccer and Track and Field Complex on Friday, Aug. 9 against Western Illinois before opening the regular season on Thursday, Aug. 15 at DePaul.
“One of my complaints about college soccer is the season is too short, so we have been waiting for this since November,” head coach Michael O’Neill said. “We got a lot of good work in this offseason. We’re very excited about the recruiting class, and we’re hoping to get off to a fast start.”
NIU lost nine seniors from last year’s team and has brought in three transfers and seven freshmen.
“College soccer is a revolving door and your roster is always different from year-to-year,” O’Neill said. “The impact those girls had was huge for us and we made it abundantly clear in the offseason that there were spaces to fill and we had to take the next step in our journey. We’re definitely going into the season with some new faces and there will be some learning as a coaching staff about our players. We see there is a lot of potential for this team to fit into those roles and take us to the next level.”
In 2023, the Huskies matched their highest win total since 2017 and qualified for the MAC Tournament for the first time since 2017 as well. The team finished 8-8-3 after going 6-8-4 in O’Neill’s first season in 2022.
“As we continue to grow the margins for error become smaller,” O’Neill said. “We want to continue to grow and take the next step in our process, we know the bar is a lot higher than it was a year ago and two years ago. It’s on us as a group to come out here every day and try our best to push that bar up a notch.”
— NIU —
Source link : https://niuhuskies.com/news/2024/7/31/womens-soccer-womens-soccer-returns-to-practice.aspx
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Publish date : 2024-08-01 02:22:42
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