Conference games mean more than anything in college athletics, which means the preparation is even more important.

The Huskies rebounded from their 1-0 loss to No. 1 Akron with a 2-0 victory against in-state rival Northwestern in Evanston Wednesday night.

“I think it was one of our best performances of the season,” said freshman midfielder Mino Kayser. “Overall, it was pretty impressive.”

NIU (6-4-2, 0-2-0 MAC) has now won two games in its past three matches, leading into a big four game October stretch of MAC contests.

This loss marked Northwestern’s (6-5-1, 1-1-0 Big Ten) first loss since Sept. 26 against No. 15 Michigan State and its first defeat on home turf since Sept. 19.

“Northwestern is a really good team, and they have the ability to score a lot and don’t give up a lot of goals,” said NIU head coach Eric Luzzi. “So the fact that we came in here and got a 2-0 win, it was a really good performance.”

The Huskies outshot the Wildcats 15-9 while both sides put five of their shots on target.

Redshirt freshman midfielder Mike Mascitti opened up the scoring in the 18th minute where he was left alone on the back post following a corner kick by Kayser.

The scoring came to a close in the 81st minute when NIU junior midfielder Finn Jorr headed away his first goal of the season off of a free kick from senior midfielder Luis Mojica.

“Before today, we had only scored one goal off of set pieces, and we had given up five,” Luzzi said. “It’s kind of been a focus of ours in the last day or two, and the guys had a really good response scoring two goals off of set pieces and not allowing any.”

NIU sophomore keeper Jordan Godsey ended with five saves in his fifth shutout of the 2010 campaign and his team’s sixth overall.

With their non-conference schedule almost wrapped up, the Huskies shift their concentration on conference matches and need some improvement after losing their first two.

“Nothing’s going to change on our end in terms of our focus,” Luzzi said. “All we care about right now is Florida Atlantic. We need to get our first conference win under our belt.”