After spending the first three games in their history on the road, the NIU women’s soccer team will play its inaugural home opener this afternoon at the Huskie soccer field.

Teikyo-Marycrest University (1-2) received the honor to play in this historic event against an NIU squad (1-2) that has had an impressive beginning to the 1993 campaign.

Three names that have continually come up for the Huskies in the scoring column early in the season are Michelle Anger, Jennifer Berg, and Beth Pomles.

Both Berg and Pomles have managed to have a two goal game early in the season and Anger nailed one goal against Valpo and scored the Huskie’s first goal against the University of Minnesota over the weekend.

Teikyo-Marycrest, like the Golden Gophers, are a first year program. However, TMU is not exactly a school the size or strength of a Minnesota.

The Marauding Eagles from Davenport, IA dropped their first two contests of the year to Luther College and Concordia 4-2 and 5-3, respectively. When they returned home, however, they shutout Graceland College 7-0.

One of the players to watch on the Eagles is #18 Amy Hatfield. The freshman from Peoria knocked in two goals for TMU in their first victory.

Head coach Cathy Allbaugh, in her first year with the program, did not have a losing record in four seasons as coach of Pleasant Valley High School.

NIU is the biggest name on the Eagles schedule, but Allbaugh remained optimistic.

“We should be fine against NIU if we can play the way we did Saturday versus Graceland,” said Allbaugh.

Something else that the Eagles believe they have to help them out in today’s match is adequate speed.

“I’ve got some pretty good speed on this team,” said Allbaugh. “But my biggest strength is that I have girls that have played soccer competitively for several years.”

As far as the lady Huskies go, they have not been blown out of a regular season game thus far.

After the team opened up the year with a 6-0 victory at Valparaiso University, they took the field in the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay/NIKE Great Lakes Classic.

Head coach Frank Horvat’s team came home with two losses, but each game was a one goal affair.

Watch for NIU to attack early and often in the first half.

Horvat has preached to his team that they need to get off to a better start in order to keep the momentum on the Huskie’s side.