NIU women’s soccer (7-4-3, 1-3-2 MAC) defeated the Kent State University Golden Flashes (5-5-2, 2-3-1 MAC) at home 2-1.
This is the Huskies first win since Sept. 15 when they defeated Valparaiso University 2-1.
“First thought in my head right now is delight to get back to winning ways, and it’s been a couple weeks, so great to get two points,” said NIU women’s soccer head coach Michael O’Neill. “(We) missed a couple of real, like, you know, big moments in the game, but just really proud overall, of the effort and toughness of the group. This is a MAC conference game, and you know it’s gonna take grit and toughness to get over the line, and today, you know, wasn’t pretty by any means, but they fought hard, and they defended well.”
Today’s game was the Huskies first conference win after going winless through the first five.
“When you go on a string of like losses, I think it’s the morale’s low, so an uplift and a whole swing of it all changes the like, the positive attitude,” said Huskie senior forward Reegan Kingpavong.
Kingpavong opened the scoring for the Huskies in the 37th minute of the game to give NIU the lead.
“It felt great. I think for the last couple weeks, we were needing, you know, energy uplift and I think that goal was that moment (the goal), you know, especially for me, as a senior, I was like, all right, we’re gonna score today.” Kingpavong said.
In the 59th minute freshman defender Julianna Hill doubled the Huskies lead, making it 2-0 against the Golden Flashes.
“It felt great, I think just like getting that goal, helped to secure the lead which was really important for us, and obviously just gave us more momentum to get the win,” Hill said.
The Golden Flashes put themselves on the scoreboard in the 61st minute after Kent State freshman defender Allison Collins scored to make the game 2-1. Despite the Golden Flashes’ offensive effort, the Huskies held firm and got the victory.
“My experience in coaching is that winning changes everything, you know as a coach, you can try and persuade, convince, you know, sell everything and ‘hey, we can get back in this,’ but ultimately winning and understanding what it takes to win can’t be coached,” O’Neill said. “So getting over that line today, I think, is going to be extremely important for our mindset, providing that we commit to, you know, the next game, which is Akron on the road on Sunday.”
UP NEXT
The Huskies return to conference play at noon Sunday to face off against the University of Akron Zips at FirstEnergy Stadium in Akron, Ohio.
