As dark clouds rolled over Huskie Soccer Field, the NIU women’s soccer team shined brightly Sunday, defeating Kent State 3-2 in two overtime periods.

“We showed a lot of heart and a lot of character, two of the things we’ve been working on the last two years,” coach Frank Horvat said. “This is a big win for us. “

The Huskies (5-6, 3-4) now are on a three-game conference winning streak after the thriller with the Golden Flashes and a Friday shutout of Akron.

Playing with a strained groin, junior Katie Klaas kept the Huskies’ winning ways alive as she connected from 25 yards out just over four minutes into the second overtime for the win.

“A lot of times I hit it over the goal so I had to get my leg over it,” Klaas said. “Then I was thinking ‘Please God, let it go in.’”

Kent State’s Lauren Covay netted the opening goal in the 54th minute after NIU goalie Leigh Steigerwald lost control of the ball after saving a header attempt.

Seven minutes later, though, the Huskies were able to knot the game up as junior Tiffany Anderson scored her third goal of the weekend off of a feed from freshman Chanelle Crosby.

After missed chances from both sides, sophomore Katie Kieffer put NIU ahead with a header from inside the penalty box off of a perfectly placed pass from sophomore Jamie Figura.

The lead was short lived, though, as Covay blasted home her second goal of the game two and a half minutes later.

The Huskie defense struggled after the tying goal, but was able to force the game into overtime after two saves by junior goalkeeper Leigh Steigerwald.

After several missed chances in the first overtime, the Huskies almost saw their effort negated, but Steigerwald came up with a diving save to keep the game alive. Steigerwald saved eight of 10 shots for the day.

“It’s just a great team victory,” Horvat said. “We didn’t want to lose this game. The people that stepped in off the bench worked extremely hard and did some great things.”

To open the winning weekend, NIU defeated the Zips 2-0 behind the goal-scoring of Anderson.

Anderson tallied both Huskie goals in the second half and Steigerwald stopped all six shots she saw for her third shutout of the season.

“There was just one girl to beat and they just made a touch around her,” Anderson said of her second goal. “I took the shot and just prayed that it went in. We’ve been working at this for two years and it’s just clicking right now.”

Anderson’s goals were set up by freshman Alexis Terry as she was able to make precision passes to open up the offense.

“We’ve been really working on our speed of play the last two weeks and finding our targets more,” Horvat said. “We got in between the defenders and caused them a lot of problems. We caught them the second half for sure, and definitely picked it up a notch.”

The Huskies picked it up all weekend and are now 3-2 at home. After the win against Akron and a come from behind victory, NIU has all the momentum in its favor.

“We just keep building, and building and building,” Klaas said. “We were down in the beginning and we could have just shut it off and let them score a bunch of goals but we didn’t. I think we’ll go into the next game building off of this.”