Head coach Jerry Kill and his football team won’t be the only ones looking for a win over Bowling Green on Saturday.

The NIU men’s soccer team will square off against the Falcons at noon as NIU head coach Steve Simmons and the Huskies look for another MAC win.

The team is coming off a hard played match against the No. 2 team in the country, where NIU

(7-3-4 overall, 2-1-1 MAC) lost 1-0 in regulation.

“The big thing with the Bowling Green match will be our mentality,” Simmons said. “When you just played a No. 2 team in the country and then you play a team that isn’t the No. 2 team in the country, there may be a tendency to not maintain focus, even though it’s a conference game.”

Bowling Green (3-9-1, 0-4-0) has yet to win in the conference, which Simmons said is dangerous.

He said that the mentality in the college generation is to look at statistics and assume the losing teams will just keep losing. He does not want to see his team lighten up its play come Saturday’s match.

“The only thing I will tell them is that we lost to Bowling Green last year in the regular season. End of story,” Simmons said. “Anybody in our conference is capable of beating anybody, so we need to be on our best and focus.”

The Falcons are coming into the game with only one shut-out on the season, compared to the Huskies’ five. NIU will try to capitalize on a keeper who has been forced to make the most saves per game out of the teams in the conference. Bowling Green’s Paul Shoemaker has allowed 25 goals in 13 games, which is nine more than the Huskies in one less game.

“If we can perform the way we did we did against Northwestern and capitalize on our scoring opportunities, we will be very pleased with the results,” said Simmons. “Our performance has been good, we just need to tidy up on our chances and let the ball fly.”

Shoemaker should be kept busy against the dominating Huskie offense. The team still holds the top spot in the MAC when looking at shots fired off per game. NIU averages 19 shots per game, almost seven more than Bowling Green.

NIU has also scored 23 times, tallying 11 more goals than BGSU.