Women’s soccer will test Dorothy’s old adage of there’s no place like home when the teams returns from a four-game road trip for the first home game of the season.

The Huskies (0-4) will take on the Nebraska-Omaha Mavericks (1-2) 7 p.m. Friday at the Soccer and Track & Field Complex. NIU will hope to jumpstart its season and continue the strong home field advantage it cultivated last season, when it went 6-1-1 in DeKalb.

The Mavericks are headed to DeKalb having lost two-straight road matches. They were beaten by Weber State, 3-1, Friday and blanked by Utah State, 3-0, Sunday. Junior Emily Nulty, an Omaha native, has some familiarity with the Mavericks and is counting on that experience to help get a win.

“They are a very good team,” Nulty said. “They’ve got a good program, but they’re definitely beatable. I’ve played with some of the girls on my club team before, so it’ll be a battle.”

Nebraska-Omaha is led by sophomore Chelsi Rohloff. Rohloff is an aggressive striker, having led the Mavericks in shots, 29, and shots on goal, 14. She leads the team with one goal and one assist on six shots.

The NIU offense is starting to show signs of life as it prepares for the first home game. Junior Maggie Renfro, who’s coming off her first career goal against Seattle Aug. 31, said the Huskies’ offense will be ready to go.

“I think it’s just we need to work on completing the simple passes from defense to midfield to the forward, [and] once the forward is able to get the ball at their feet, I think we can do something great with it,” Renfro said. “So hopefully, we’re able to just start with the simple pass and then we can move off the ball and [get] going from there.”

The Huskies are happy to be back home, where they dominated last season, going 6-1-1. Junior Kate Wirthlin said the team’s practices have been strong, which bodes well for the homestand and the defense.

The players have “really been working at practices on defense, especially in our little groups,” Wirthlin said. “So, I think that if we play together and if we move together as a backline, it’ll be very strong.”

With only one match this weekend, the Huskies have a chance to have more rest than they usually have. Friday’s match will be one of only two times where they play only one game in a weekend. The other game is a match-up against Wisconsin-Green Bay Sept. 18.

Even though the Huskies have started the season winless, they’ve gone up against quality opponents. The experience of playing those high-caliber teams should be on display this weekend.

“We took something out of every game,” said head coach John Ross. “To play teams like that, trying to play at that level, once you are matching that stuff, now you’re that level team. So, I think it really helped us. You’ll see what it did for us later on in the season.”