NIU women’s soccer coach Frank Horvat knows that his team is running out of chances to qualify for the postseason.

“We don’t have any more time for letdowns or a lack of finishing all our effort,” he said.

The ninth-year coach said all along the team has been playing well but not getting rewarded for it.

“We need to get our rewards and we need to start doing it now,” Horvat said.

The Huskies (1-9-1, 1-6 in Mid-American Conference) will try to do so this afternoon at Western Michigan in their only match of the weekend. It will be the first of three consecutive road games for the team.

The Broncos (7-5, 5-2 in MAC) won their first four MAC games but have lost two of their last three. They defeated the Huskies 1-0 last season. The all-time series is tied 2-2.

“They just find ways to win,” Horvat said. “They don’t do anything special. They’re a lot like us but just find ways to win.”

This game will be the third of the week for the Broncos, and the Huskies will be a bit more rested after playing one less match than the Broncos.

“That’s definitely got to be an advantage for us, but we can’t take them lightly,” Horvat said. “We need to go at them with everything we got. Right now there’s everything for us to gain and nothing for us to lose.”

Mathematically, the Huskies can still make the MAC tournament. But they need to be in the top eight and only have five more MAC games to try to get there. The team won’t giv3e up on trying to do so.

The Huskies have three points this season, while the eighth place team, Bowling Green, has seven. A team gets three points for a win, one for a tie.

“There’s no way we should give up because all the games we’ve been very close to winning,” sophomore forward Katie Klaas said.

Senior Becca Bleyer will once again have a chance to score her 50th NIU point. Since the team needs wins, she won’t go into the game thinking about it.

“I try not to because I try to put as little pressure on myself as I can,” she said.