There is only one thing to do when your team goes 6-10-2. Think about next year.

That was what NIU soccer coach Willy Roy did as he pondered his first full year at the helm of a college team.

“I’m the eternal optimist,” Roy said. “It’s the persistency factor I have. We’ve started something over here. It can only get better.”

A major reason for Roy’s high expectations is that most of this year’s squad will be around next fall and the Huskies appeared to gel in their last four matches of 1987.

“At the end of the year, we deserved to wear our uniform,” Roy said. The first-year coach said he was pleased with the Huskies’ improved passing which led to back-to-back season-ending wins over Bradley and Northwestern.

Following last Wednesday’s finale with NU, Roy gathered his players in the locker room for some parting comments.

“I’ve had an awful lot of fun,” he told his team. “Basically—basically—you are a bunch of decent guys. If you were old enough I’d take you out for a victory celebration.”

Most of 1987 was no party for the Huskies. After capitalizing on their early two-game home stand with a pair of victories, the Huskies suffered three straight losses away from DeKalb.

In their next six road matches, NIU managed just one tie while dropping five. The Huskies’ highest scoring output in their nine road games came in a 3-2 loss at Drake.

The need for a goal-scorer quickly became the predominant theme of Roy’s post-game discussions. The former Chicago Sting leader was not used to seeing his teams squander scoring opportunities. For the bulk of 1987, any Huskie goal became grounds for a celebration.

Case in point: In its 13 matches from Sept. 13 through Oct. 25, NIU scored 18 goals. That does not sound like the statistics of a team in a scoring slump, but considering 10 of those tallies were at the expense of the lowly Chicago State Cougars one afternoon in DeKalb, it’s apparent that much of the Huskies’ season was spent in futility.

Sophomore forward Preben Halle had been looked to as the Huskies’ offensive leader going into the season, but the soft-spoken Norwegian wound up excelling as a defender in NIU’s last several games.

“Preben moved to the defensive line and really helped,” Roy said. “He really moves the ball upfield well. The worst thing is to have guys who kick the ball out of bounds and say, ‘Good.'”

The only Huskie to emerge as a consistent scoring threat was freshman Willy Roy Jr. The son of the Huskies’ first-year coach put his name on the scoring sheet in nine of NIU’s 18 matches. Roy Jr. wound up leading the Huskies with 20 points on six goals and eight assists.

But coach Roy said his son has room to improve.

“Willy Roy has to work on his heading,” the NIU father-coach said. “He’s 6-foot-3. He should get more header goals.”

The NIU coach is looking forward to the expected arrival of his twin sons Markus and Karsten Roy. The Fenton High School seniors were recently named to the Tribune All-State team.

Both Markus (goalkeeper) and Karsten (defender) could have an immediate impact on the NIU soccer fortunes. Karsten would have an excellent chance to crack the Huskie’s starting lineup with the departure of senior Helge Abrahamsen, a potential assistant coach for NIU next year.