DeKALB | With six regular season games left, the NIU men’s soccer team is enjoying a hot streak.

NIU (8-3-1 overall, 2-0 MAC) has a 7-1-1 record in its last nine games, and a running five-game shutout streak.

The Huskies will play a pair of 1 p.m. road games, the first one today at Western Michigan and the second on Sunday at Western Illinois.

A tight NIU defensive back line has held opponents scoreless for over 490 minutes, and will be the key to slowing down WIU (7-5), which has outscored its opposition 22-8 on the season.

“We defend with a notion that if we aren’t having a good day with the attack, we can still win the game,” NIU coach Steve Simmons said. “If we do well on the ball, then we’ll win. Our defense always keeps us in games no matter what the circumstance.”

WIU is led in scoring by Martin Browne. The freshman forward has eight goals and 18 points on the season.

WIU is 4-1 in its last five games, and is coming off a 1-0 loss to Wisconsin on Wednesday.

On Friday, NIU will look to stay perfect in the MAC against WMU (2-9, 0-1). The Broncos have dropped five straight matches.

NIU may get defender Chris Rufa back for its upoming matches. He practiced yesterday after sitting out Sunday’s game with a knee injury. The junior is listed as day-to-day.

Senior midfielder Chris VanDuerm earned MAC Player of the Week honors for his overtime goal at UW-Milwaukee on Sunday.

Simmons’ squad owns back-to-back MAC players of the week, a No. 5 ranking in the NSCAA Great Lakes Region poll and eight votes in a Soccer Times poll.

With the 2006 Major League Baseball playoffs in their infancy, Simmons used a pitching analogy to describe his team.

“We’ve got to be disciplined as to how we are organized,” the fourth-year coach said. “We need to take our chances better as far as scoring because that always takes a load off.

“It’s like run support in baseball. Goal support is the same thing; it takes pressure off the defense.”

James Nokes is a NIU men’s soccer beat reporter for the Northern Star.