A thriller – that’s how you could describe the women’s soccer match against the University of Detroit-Mercy (10-2-2) Monday afternoon.

“I think this is the best game, without a doubt, that we’ve played all year,” said head coach Frank Horvat.

The only thing he would have changed was the outcome. His team played their hearts out, but failed to hold off the Titans, falling 1-0 in an emotional game.

The Huskies (4-8) threatened the Titans numerous times taking nine shots. In the second half NIU outhustled Detroit-Mercy every second.

Their hustle almost payed off in the last 10 minutes of the game when the Titans allowed the Huskies a freekick from the corner and then two immediate corner kicks. On all three situations NIU came just short of tying up the match. “We made one mistake on defense and they capitalized,” said Horvat.

The only goal of the game was put in by the Titans’ Leslie-ann Graham with 26:36 left in the first half. Graham is ranked ninth in the nation in scoring. On the season she has 33 points from 12 goals and nine assists.

Detroit-Mercy also boasts the nations leading scorer. The Huskies managed to hold off Cindy Fix who has 46 points on the season as a result of her 16 goals and 14 assists. NIU held her off to just one shot-on-goal.

Horvat talked to the two players who were to mark Fix and Graham as to what they would need to do to keep them from beating the team.

“We took away their whole game plan,” Horvat said.

NIU kept Detroit-Mercy from using their half-backs to serve the ball up the field. This was a key because when Detroit is allowed to do use this game plan they are very successful.

The key to the game is putting what you have practiced to work, and the Huskies did that yesterday against the Titans.

“We really applied a lot of things we’ve been working on the past week-and-a-half in practice,” said Horvat.