With this weekend’s Big Central Soccer Conference Tournament at NIU around the corner, the Huskies have claimed sole possession of third place after a weekend split between Louisville and Cincinnati.

The Huskies edged LU 1-0 on Saturday which gave goalie Markus Roy his ninth shutout of the season. However, NIU fell to UC 5-3 on Sunday.

NIU Coach Willy Roy was the first to admit his Huskies should have won by a greater margin over LU, but stressed that a road victory by any margin is always welcome.

“We dominated the game. We were much more aggressive, we missed some real opportunities and could have won by more. But, the most important thing is that we won, and we did it on the road. That is always nice,” said Roy.

The Huskies pounced on the board when Per Ekholdt banged in a 10-yarder from Willy Roy Jr. with 14:23 gone in the first half.

NIU dominated the game statistically as well. Seven of NIU’s 10 shots were on goal compared to only three LU shots on goal.

owever, the Huskies came up short in the statistics against UC which lifted the Bear-Cats to a second-place finish at 4-1 (12-3 overall). The loss dropped the Huskies to 3-2 in conference and 11-4-1 overall.

“We played some of our best offensive soccer of the season, but our defensive mistakes were horrendous. It was one of our worst defensive games,” said coach Roy.

NIU jumped on the board first when Dave Weichman buried his third goal of the season from 10 yards out with 18:60 gone. Weichman’s goal resulted when he intercepted a back pass to the UC goalie.

NIU had little time to celebrate when UC counter-attacked 30 seconds later on a David Kiley goal assisted by Roger Grothaus.

UC continued its celebration three minutes later when Grothaus set up Mark Thiemann to put the Bear-Cats up 2-1.

Kiley added one more before the half ended which resulted in coach Roy pulling his son Markus from goal. Tim Spiegel replaced his spot.

NIU would not quit as Todd Moore chipped in his sixth goal of the season on a 25-yarder with 69:25 gone.

Once again UC came right back (this time within two minutes) to take a two goal lead on Thiemann’s second goal. UC’s Tim Lesiak increased the score to 5-2 with 81:30 gone.

Ekholdt finished out the days scoring when Tony Adolfs set him up with 4:02 left.