Building an NCAA tournament resume is getting tougher by the week for the NIU men’s soccer team.

With three matches to go in the regular season, the Huskies travel to Madison to take on the Badgers tonight at 7 p.m. in their final non-conference game.

“This is pretty important,” said NIU head coach Eric Luzzi. “Wisconsin is a Big Ten team and they’ve had a good run the last couple weeks. Every game is crucial at this point. So whether we play Akron again or Wisconsin or a team that’s not highly rated, it doesn’t matter because a loss is going to hurt no matter who we play.”

This season, NIU’s chances of gaining entry to the tournament will rely heavily on its schedule resume due to the absence of an automatic bid for the winner of the MAC tourney.

Wisconsin leads the all time series 18-12-1 with last year’s match going in the favor of the Badgers 1-0.

NIU (8-6-1, 2-2-0 MAC) has won three out of its last four matches, out-scoring opponents 9-3.
Luzzi will be looking for his ninth win in his first campaign, which would be an NIU record for a first year coach.

Together, senior midfielder Luis De La Cerda, senior defender Josh Karsten and sophomore midfielder Brad Horton combine for 15 of the Huskies’ 27 goals this season, totaling five a piece.
Freshman keeper Jordan Godsey continues to own the 18 yard box, having accumulated 60 saves with a 0.70 goals against average.

UW (6-6-2, 3-2-0 Big Ten) has won three in a row, including victories over Northwestern and Ohio State.

“They made some personnel changes about four or five games ago and I don’t think they’ve lost since they’ve done that,” Luzzi said. “We saw them play early and they had some things that you could tell weren’t clicking, but they seem to have sorted that out.”

In 14 matches, the Badgers have been out-shot 214-155 and out-scored 17-13.

Senior defender Taylor Waspi leads the UW attack with three goals and one assist. Senior keeper Alex Horwath has started in 13 of the team’s 14 bouts, grabbing 51 saves and a 1.28 goals against average.

Even with the Badgers’ recent success, NIU invites the tall task.

“At the end of the day, you want some challenges,” Luzzi said. “You would rather play good teams than not good teams and if we’re going to play a team, we might as well play them with the best that they have to throw at us.”

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