The NIU soccer team had more chances to win its match against the Flames of Illinois-Chicago Wednesday but came up empty as the Huskies’ woeful season continued.

In the last 10 minutes of the game, NIU missed a half-dozen quality shots that could have given them a victory. Could have, should have, would have, did not.

“When the whistle blows we should be ready,” said NIU coach Willy Roy. It appeared as if the Huskies were controlling the tempo of the game from the start. A quick peek at the stat sheet shows the edge to the Huskies in every catagory with the exception of one—the final score.

They had the chances to win the match but came up short. Tim Prerost just missed; Ken Hoffman headed the ball right off the crossbar; Andy Lane just missed; Robert Pavljasevic just missed and Michael Defort shot high on a breakaway. The list goes on and on.

NIU could have easily won that match Wednesday, but you can not only look at the goals they failed to score but also the goals they allowed.

On a goal by UIC’s Herc Anastasakis, which was the first of the game, there was nobody playing deep on defense; so when the ball was knocked out of the goal box there was no defender around to pick him up, and he ended up scoring on a breakaway. That is part of the communication problem Roy has been talking about all season.

Things like that have been driving the coach crazy. “We were slapped in the face,” he said of the loss. “There is no way they should have scored against us.” While Roy said that his team thinks that they are better than they really are, he feels that if they just learn to play with each other, things will get ironed out.

This season is starting to turn frustrating, but Roy wants his boys to stand up and play as a team. The Huskies will have their weekend full with a match at Eastern Illinois today and then come back home Sunday to face Wisconsin-Green Bay at 1 p.m.