“It hits them like a ton of bricks.”

That’s what NIU soccer head coach Steve Simmons said about starting the regular season as a rookie.

Though the Huskies have 17 returning letter-winners, the team also has 10 new players on the roster. The rookies will make their debuts in the Northwestern Tournament in Evanston this weekend.

“I want to make sure that when we go into Friday and into the campaign that the guys who are younger don’t get ambushed too much,” Simmons said.

The tournament marks the opener of the regular season for the Huskies. NIU will start tournament play against IUPUI on Friday, and then will go head to head with San Francisco on Sunday.

“We have IUPUI, they are a regional team and they’re tricky, and then San Francisco has always been the tough team from out on the West Coast,” Simmons said. “They will be two hard matches and we want to get off on the right foot.”

Though the rookies have held their own in exhibition play, Simmons warned that regular season play becomes more aggressive. To be successful in the tournament, Simmons relies on veteran players to help younger teammates.

“We have some guys who know what it’s like to win a MAC title and we have guys who know the disappointment of letting it slip through their fingers,” Simmons said. “We have to couple that experience with the new guys’ enthusiasm. And hopefully it can become a winning formula.”

This formula may help the Huskies live up to their preseason poll ranking. NIU was picked to finish second in its conference, just behind last year’s MAC champion Akron.

However, before facing off with the MAC, the team has to focus on the games at hand.

“I have to see much more than we saw in DePaul, and that has to happen because that was over a week ago,” Simmons said. “But I am feeling pretty good going into the Northwestern Tournament.”

Simmons said his team needs to work on the basics and keeping things simple. At the exhibition game against Marquette, Simmons felt like his guys were not playing as cleanly as possible.

“When we connected simple passes we were really good,” Simmons said. “When we didn’t connect and we gave the ball away easily, I thought we became our own worst enemy.”