This weekend, the NIU soccer team will look to gain some added respect in the Governor’s Cup being held in Edwardsville.

The 5-1 Huskies will go up against 3-3-1 Southern Illinois-Edwardsville in the first round. Western Illinois and Eastern Illinois will face off in the other game. NIU is the defending champion since last year’s Governor’s Cup was cancelled because of fan rowdiness at EIU.

“The first game is going to be extremely tough,” head coach Willy Roy said.

“The winner of this game should win the championship—I’m not putting down (EIU or WIU)_ but (SIU-E and NIU) are on a different level,” Roy said.

However, EIU has beaten the Huskies earlier in the season 3-1. “The biggest game we have right now is against Southern, I think they would have to be the favorites since they’re the home team and we can’t look ahead to playing Eastern because we don’t know what’s going to happen,” Roy said.

The Huskies are coming off two road trip wins, the upset of Akron, the No. 13 team in the nation, and the win over DePaul. Despite NIU’s shutting out of two top-20 teams on the road, NIU has yet to receive any national or regional recognition.

“I’m not going to worry about the polls. I’ll let whoever’s voting worry about it,” Roy said. “I think if we go 10-2 for the rest of the year, we should make it in to the NCAA tournament. It’s a tall order for our kids, and since we play 65 percent of our games on the road and that makes it tougher yet.”

Roy said NIU just needs to keep winning to get the respect top schools receive. “Akron is still ranked second in their region after we beat them. It shows the respect that the coaches have for Akron,” Roy said.

The Huskies have the schedule to move up in the ranking. NIU faces traditional powers Quincy, Indiana, and St. Louis later in the year. The rest of the Huskies schedule is almost as tough. Wisconsin-Milwaukee and Illinois State will pose a threat to the Huskies. “If we just keep playing well, the polls will take care of itself,” Roy said.