This weekend women’s soccer returns home for one last non conference matchup before the start of MAC conference play.

Sunday, the Huskies (3-3-0) will welcome the University of South Dakota Coyotes (1-5-1) to DeKalb.

NIU is coming off its third consecutive weekend split; losing to Northwestern, 2-0, and beating Eastern Illinois, 1-0.

Sunday’s game is the beginning of a three-game homestand for the Huskies, who will open up MAC play next weekend against Eastern Michigan and Western Michigan.

Head coach John Ross said Sunday’s game could be a big momentum builder heading into MAC conference play.

“I think it would give us a lot of momentum, just the work that we’ve done leading up to this point,” Ross said. “It would just kind of solidify everything that we’ve done and know that or doing the right things and seeing results.”

The Coyotes are in the midst of a seven-game road trip which started last weekend with a pair of losses against Drake and Wisconsin-Green Bay.

Despite the Coyotes’s record, junior goalkeeper Amy Carr said they cannot be taken for granted.

“Sometimes when teams haven’t got the results that they should have, it could be a worse thing for us,” Carr said. “They’ll be looking to push hard and get the record straight and get another win. So, that could be a bad thing for us. We’ve just got to come out and play hard like we have every game and make sure we improve every game.”

Ross echoed Carr’s sentiments.

“Their much better than their record shows,” Ross said. “We have to make sure that we’ve got our focus and we don’t look at their record, but we know that their a good quality opponent and we gonna be focused and ready to play our best soccer and to get better on that day.”