The NIU soccer team took a roller coaster ride this weekend, with the high point coming on Friday and the low on Sunday.

Head coach Willy Roy was seeking some recognition going into the weekend and up until Sunday, the Huskies were in a great position to execute their plan.

Plan A merited an “A” for the Huskies as they passed the first major test of the season with an impressive win over the 20th-ranked Badgers from the University of Wisconsin, 2-0.

“Coach (Roy’s) game plan was right on the money,” forward John Lechner said. “We exposed their outside and closed them down in the middle.”

Roy went into the game knowing that the Badgers liked to dump cross passes from the fullbacks to the forwards. With that in mind, he devised the game plan to shut down the fullbacks and clog up the cross passes.

That’s exactly what the Huskies did. After one half of play, NIU stopped the Badger attack and went into the lockeroom deadlocked in a scoreless tie.

“We knew they were going to cross,” Roy said. “So, we closed up the middle. The defense did an excellent job. Karsten’s (Roy) defense made him the best player on the field and Tony (Adolfs) did nice work in the midfield. It’s not easy to beat a Top-20 team on the road.”

The Huskie offense squandered a couple of early opportunities to score in the first half. The missed chances meant nothing at the 15:40 mark of the second half. Lechner dribbled past the Wisconsin defense, then went down in front of the goal. The junior managed to dump the ball off to Chris Schneider who fed it back to Lechner on the right side of the net for a 15-yard score: 1-0 Huskies.

Lechner’s first strike of the season proved to be the game-winner, but Willy Roy Jr. added a little insurance on a perfect set-up from Lechner eight minutes later.

Goalkeeper Markus Roy pitched his second consecutive shutout of the young season and his 16th career overall.

“The whole team deserves credit,” Roy said. “I know coaches always say that, but truthfully, you don’t beat a team ranked No. 20 unless everyone does their part. We beat a good team and we did it by outplaying them.”

Eastern Illinois did the outplaying on Sunday. The Panthers defeated the Huskies 3-1 and spoiled NIU’s debut in the Mid-Continent Conference.

The only Huskies highlight came with 16:24 elapsed as Roy Jr. scored on a free kick, with an assist going to Karsten Roy, to give NIU the early lead. The score was Roy Jr.‘s third tally of the season in as many games.

“Mentally, we were not on the field,” Roy said. “They (EIU) respected us more than we respected ourselves. Maybe we had players who were celebrating the Wisconsin win.”