It was a tale of two seasons for Willy Roy and his men this year.

At 6-9-2 it was a rare losing season. The NIU soccer team did, however, finish the season strong and that made Roy a happy man.

The Huskies started the season in a dismal fashion. After two shutouts and a tie, they finally won a match. That victory would be short-lived because they did not win another for three weeks and finished the first half of the season at 1-7-1.

“When you lose as many quality seniors as we did, somebody has to step up,” Roy said. “That did not happen.” That, combined with “indecision with goalkeeping,” were two key reasons for the faltering Huskies.

Roy decided to stick with one goalkeeper, Jeff McCall, and right or wrong stick with a regular lineup instead of constantly juggling it. “In the end it started to pay off,” Roy said.

Pay off it did because NIU finished the second half with a record of 5-2-1, losing only to non-conference opponents Wisconsin-Milwaukee and Marquette.

While half of the first-half goals came on penalty kicks and three-quarters by two players—Dave Weichman and Mike Defort—when the revitalized second-half Huskies came around, only four out of 13 goals came on penalty kicks and seven different Huskies scored goals.

NIU only scored eight times in the first nine matches with two assists accounting for 18 points but woke up to double that score in the last eight matches to 36 on 13 goals with 10 assists.

The turning point in the season was when the Huskies defeated the defending Big Ten champions Wisconsin 2-1 in DeKalb.

“Wisconsin was very experienced and we did a real, real good job,” Roy said. It was the most exciting part of his season.

On the flip-side, a 1-0 loss to Wisconsin Green-Bay just three days before was the low-light. “We were the better team,” Roy stated.

The coach was happy with his team both on and off the field.

“We showed comradery on the West Coast trip, even though we didn’t fair so well,” he said. “They acted like true champs.”

As for next season, Roy has some recruiting to do. “We need another goalkeeper, a good midfielder and another forward,” he said. “I’m looking at four or five players now. We finished on a good note.”