DeKALB — “Crazy game; crazy game. A game of two halves in windy DeKalb.”
Those were the first words out of NIU women’s soccer head coach Michael O’Neill’s mouth after the Huskies fell 5-0 to Buffalo on Sunday at the NIU Soccer and Track & Field Complex.
The sentiment perfectly captured the chaos of a wild afternoon in DeKalb, where the Huskies kept pace with the Mid-American Conference’s No. 2 team before surrendering five second-half goals, including a hat trick from a substitute, while also losing their team captain midway through.
“I’ve never been part of a game like that, where you’ve lost in such a humiliating way, 5-0, but been so dominant for large spells of the game,” O’Neill said.
Three of the five goals NIU allowed came off the foot of Buffalo midfielder/forward Marissa Foster. The senior scored her first three goals of the 2025 campaign after missing last season with an injury.
Sophomore goalkeeper Lauren Pearson made her fifth career start in goal after posting back-to-back clean sheets. The Muskego, Wisconsin, native made three saves but gave up a career-high four goals before she was subbed out for Gonzaga transfer senior Amy Stineman in the 78th minute. Stineman surrendered an additional goal to cement NIU’s largest loss since a 6-0 defeat by Western Michigan on Oct. 28, 2021.
Despite a poor day for the netminders, O’Neill placed more responsibility on the outfield. NIU took 11 shots throughout the match — including four on goal — and had seven corner kicks but failed to create any scoring.
“Unfortunately, when you give away such high-percentage chances, you can only do so much,” O’Neill said. “So, I’m actually not upset with Lauren (Pearson) or Amy (Stineman) for the goals they conceded. I think there were things in front of them that we could have done a lot better.”
Bullied by the Bulls
NIU outshot Buffalo 5-2 and held the visitors to no shots on goal in the first 45 minutes, earning a scoreless draw at halftime. But the Bulls then came out aggressive after the break, breaking the silence in the 50th minute with a goal from senior midfielder Sarah Woods off an assist from graduate forward Jasmine Guerber.
Just 38 seconds later, the Huskies suffered another blow when team captain Aubrey Robertson went down with an apparent head injury. The senior midfielder exited the match in the 51st minute and did not return.
“I’m not sure we were able to recover from that, from a defensive standpoint,” O’Neill said. “I think there was a big void when she left, and obviously, they capitalized — as good teams do.”
The Bulls doubled NIU’s deficit just four minutes later, as junior defender/midfielder Eva Blatz scored with a high left shot off a corner kick in the 55th minute.
The Huskies attempted to rally with five shots over the next 13 minutes, failing to find the net on any of them. Pearson then made what would be her final save — stopping a shot by Foster — before the Bull struck twice in the span of just 125 seconds.
Foster netted her first goal of the season in the 71st minute, taking a pass from senior midfielder Ellie Simmons and burying a shot into the net to extend Buffalo’s lead to 3-0. Two minutes later, in the 73rd, Foster outran a defender and fired a shot back across the box and into the bottom-left corner of NIU’s goal.
“She had pace. I mean, she beat us,” Pearson said of Foster. “She was better than our defense, and she just placed it.
Pearson exited the match shortly after, replaced in goal by Stineman. Foster capped her hat trick in the 79th minute, drawing a foul by NIU freshman defender Mckayla Harsley and slotting the ensuing penalty kick down the middle.
NIU attempted just one more shot in the rest of regulation — junior midfielder Isabel Struble missed right in the 80th minute. Stineman recorded her first and only save of the day in the 85th, closing out a fourth consecutive loss to Buffalo.
Next up: The MAC frontrunners
The Huskies will have to lick their wounds fairly quickly, as they’ll go from hosting the MAC’s No. 2 team to its reigning champion: the Western Michigan Broncos. At 7 p.m. Thursday, the Broncos will play in DeKalb as one of only two MAC teams still unbeaten in league play, sitting at 5-0-1 after a 2-0 shutout of Ball State on Sunday.
“We need to take a day off tomorrow (Monday) and then come out Tuesday, Wednesday, get two good days of work in, and show some fight; show some backbone,” O’Neill said. “Because it may be another windy day; it may be another game of two halves, but we need to make sure that we respond in the right way against a very good opponent.”
