NIU’s soccer team cruised to an expected win over DePaul University yesterday, but two goals scored by DePaul ruined the night for head coach Willy Roy.

The 4-2 win improves the Huskies record to 5-1, and DePaul drops to 0-6. “We were just a better team than DePaul, but when we play a team we should beat, we still need to play defense like we did at Madison, (Wis.), and at Akron,” Roy said.

The usually stellar Huskies defense allowed two goals in the second half. The first of DePaul’s goal came 49:46 into the second half when senior Paul Schissler headed a 15-yard shot past NIU goalie Markus Roy. “(Schissler) was a big guy, about 6-4, but I felt that (defender) Karsten (Roy) should have contested him. He was big, but someone should have contested him,” Roy said.

The Huskies jumped ahead to a 3-0 lead with Chris Schneider opening up the scoring with an assist from Per Ekholdt 21:13 into the game. Ekholdt got the second goal with Willy Roy Jr. getting his first assist of the game. The third goal was a gift from DePaul when a distracted DePaul goalie let a teammate’s pass go underneath him into the goal. The Ekholdt-Roy Jr. combination struck again in the second half with Ekholdt knocking in a 15-yarder.

“DePaul has a nice coach (John Barrett). He motivated them and they played some solid defense, but they didn’t want to mix it up. They played a little disorganized and (Barrett) is trying to set some pattern for them, but we didn’t play a smart match,” Roy said.

Roy described the Huskies’ defensive performance as “lackadaisical.” “I’m dissappointed about our defense. I think our defenders felt that they could dribble the ball out—everyone wanted to score goals, but defenders are suppossed to defend the goal, forwards are suppossed to score the goals and midfielders are suppossed to do a little bit of each.”

Roy had more to complain about Monday. The national recognition Roy expects hasn’t come yet. NIU still hasn’t gotten the regional recognition. Tuesday’s coaches poll has the Huskies at No. 6 in the region, the same spot they were in last week. Despite shutting out the nation’s No. 13 team (Akron) last week and also shutting out the No. 20 team (Wisconsin-Madison), the Huskies received only two more points than the week before.

But Roy heard better news when the Mid-Continent Conference named Roy Jr. as its player of the week, yesterday. All-America candidate Roy Jr. had five assists last week and added two more in the win over DePaul. Roy Jr. has three goals and seven assists so far. Roy Jr. holds the single game assist, single season assist and career assist school records.