It’s back to the Buckeye State for the NIU women’s soccer team as the Huskies travel east for the second half of their four-game road swing.

NIU (5-5-3, 2-3-1) squares off against Ohio at 3 p.m. today and faces Akron at noon Sunday.

The Huskies defeated Ohio twice last season. They topped the Bobcats 1-0 in the regular season and pulled off a 2-0 victory in the opening round of the MAC tournament.

As one of the top teams in the MAC, the Bobcats (4-6-3, 4-1-1) have picked up all of their victories in conference play.

“They’re going to be a similar team, but we know from being in the MAC: any day, any team, any result,” said associate head coach Paul Jobson.

Sunday’s matchup with eighth-place Akron (6-4-4, 1-3-2) will be taken just as seriously as Ohio, Jobson said. When NIU and Akron hooked up last year at this time, each team had similar records, but it was the Zips that came away with a 1-0 result. NIU managed to outshoot Akron 10-1, but could not finish on any of its attempts.

“Records don’t mean a thing. You can’t take anybody for granted in this conference at all,” Jobson said. “It’s just a matter of which team shows up and puts together the pieces better that day. That’s going to be the team that wins the game.”

NIU has been bitten by the injury bug lately, but the team looks to be close to full health on the pitch this weekend.

“We’re pretty dinged up and banged up,” Jobson said. “We’ve got some girls that have been taking it a little bit lighter this week and hopefully repairing their bodies so that we are as close to 100 percent as we can be come Friday.”

The coaches’ expectations are the same as they have been all season. They look for the defense to remain consistent and for the offense to capitalize on opportunities.

“We’ve been consistent defensively and really overall, our attack has been consistent too,” Jobson said. “We’re just going to put a lot of pressure on them offensively and one’s going to fall in there.”