“Beat Toledo.”

NIU’s Mo Smunt has many goals she wants to achieve this season, but those words were her first when asked before the season began.

Smunt and the rest of the NIU women’s soccer team (4-4-0) will get their chance Sunday when the defending MAC champion Toledo Rockets (4-3-1) come to DeKalb.

But before the Huskies get their shot at Toledo, they will have to deal with Bowling Green (4-5-0), which advanced to the MAC semifinals last year before falling to Toledo.

The Falcons’ 2008 success came from an offense that scored 38 goals, but the 2009 campaign has been highlighted by offensive outages. Even though Bowling Green has found the net nine times, they have been shutout in all five of their losses, including their last two contests.

Offensive struggles seem a long time ago for the Huskies after they exploded for six goals last weekend in their final two non-conference matchups.

“After last weekend, it’s great to be able to start conference play at home,” said NIU coach Carrie Barker.

The Huskies have come close to capturing the MAC title in each of the last two years. Barker realizes that emotions will be running high as they begin conference play.

“We can’t let ourselves get too emotionally high that we lose sight of the gameplan,” Barker said.

Those emotions may be hard to control Sunday when NIU and Toledo take the field.

To have success against a high-powered Toledo offense, the Huskies will have to limit the
attempts of Molly Cornell, one of only two players to ever be named MAC Player of the Year twice.

“We have to take everything one game at a time,” Barker said. “We’re not going to be intimidated by any team.”

All comments are moderated before being published. We will not edit your comments, but we also will not approve those that are abusive, off-topic, attack another poster or contain information we know to be libelous or false.

During peak weekday viewing times, most comments will be reviewed within six hours. For more detailed information, click here.

After submitting your comment, check below for a confirmation message.

• Your name:
• Enter text from image:
  

• Your comment:

* 300-character count. HTML formatting will not display.