NIU field hockey coach Laurie Bell’s 1990 squad has only one obstacle in its way from having a great season: a great schedule.

Bell’s Senior and freshman dominated team has more talent than last year’s 9-8 record would indicate. The Huskies were top-20 ranked at one stage last season before a rash of injuries sidetracked several key players.

With an influx of talented freshman and the return of several veterans to add stability, the Huskies may be improved on the field, but the won/loss record could suffer at the hands of what Bell calls, “the toughest schedule NIU field hockey has had in recent history.

“It’s the kind of schedule that if we do well, we can shoot for good things at the end of the season,” Bell said. “The strength of the schedule comes early in the season, so it’s critical for us to do well.”

The Huskies, however, do have some ammunition to attack the tough competition. “We have a very strong defense and midfield returning, just about the entire group is seniors. We’re really looking to them to hold us together,” Bell said. “We’ve got two freshman goaltenders coming in so they’ll have to learn quickly in preseason.

“Our frontline will be predominately freshman. We have one returning veteran, Maaike Schroeder, and we’re looking for a lot of things from her.”

Bell is also looking for a lot of things from several other of her returning players.

“(Alice) Wassman is a key, we need her healthy. Another injured player last year was Nicol Getner, she’s also going to be a key player for us to get back in the midfield,” Bell said.

“Julie Teaman will be the key player on defense. She’s going to play our center-back position and she’s a very well rounded player. Along the frontline we’re looking for Schroeder to score goals and help the players along the frontline because she’s the veteran there.

“All three of the backs, Jenny McCreary, Teaman and the third back will be key and in the midfield we’ll look to Debbie Beans, Pam Snavely and Amy Lynn to hold down the midfield.

“Tina Hahn has had a great summer,” Bell adds. “She’s in super, super shape. She can be a key factor. And then one of the goalkeepers is going to have to stand out and take that job.”

The Huskies this season will be trying to avoid the kind of pivotal game that last year’s Iowa game was for NIU.

The Huskies were leading Iowa, at that time the only undefeated team in the country, 2-1 with one minute left, only to lose the game in overtime. The game, however, wasn’t the only thing the Huskies lost against Iowa.

“That was a very key point in the season for us last year,” Bell said. “We lost two starters and then we lost our second leading scorer the following weekend. Since we lost three key players, we had to do a lot of shifting around and our kids were just not able to do it. It was too much change.”

One change that Bell is happy about is Huskie Stadium’s new turf.

“It’s great because the old turf was very matted and it had a lot of seams in it that were starting to pull apart and it played a lot with the ball.”

With a conference that features perennial national powers Iowa and Northwestern, the Huskies will need all the home-field edge that Huskie Stadium can provide.

“Conference play is really tough for us because it’s a very, very strong conference,” Bell said. “We will have to play well every game.”