The newest addition to the Horizon League, the Northern Illinois Huskies, had a weekend competing in conference matches against the Wright State University Raiders.
The conference games included men’s and women’s soccer and volleyball, all taking on the Huskies from Sept. 25-26.
On Friday, Sept. 25, the Wright State volleyball team hosted the Huskies in McLin Gym to kick off their conference play for the season.
The Raiders, who came off of a win from an invitational in Michigan against Drake, along with a canceled game due to a power outage against Michigan State, came ready to compete for a top spot in the Horizon League.
WSU swept the Huskies with #7 Lauren Yacobucci recording 46 assists and being honored for 3,000 career assists.
Yacobucci talks about her personal success and what helps her.
“It’s awesome, I mean I feel like I've had a lot of great hitters to be feeding the ball to and feel like that really kind of helps me out,” Yacobucci said.
Also being celebrated during this game series was #2 Reilly Zegunis, with 1,000 career kills and head coach Tarvers Green celebrated 100 career wins as a volleyball coach.
Coach Green talks about his success as a coach.
“It’s a lot of hard work that goes into it. You know obviously it's an achievement in my career but like there's just a lot of other people that allow us to be able to do that,” Green said.
However, WSU did not get to celebrate wins all around in the Horizon, as both men's and women's soccer were not able to secure their wins against NIU.
The women's team traveled to Illinois and lost 0-1, allowing NIU to score in the final four minutes.
WSU men's soccer battled the Huskies at home at Alumni Field and finished with only 10 men on their side.
The very physical match wrapped up with a final of 1-2 as #22 Keiji Nakazawa was the forward who gave the Raiders their point.
Soon after the goal, when the Raiders were getting excited about tying up the game, #36 Josyah Nozil contacted the NIU goalkeeper head-on, resulting in a red card for WSU and leaving them down a man for the remainder of the match.
This was not the last altercation of the game, as multiple players from each team piled up in a shoving match. This resulted in a yellow card for NIU and a WSU player on the ground.
Head Coach Alex Van der Sluijs talks about the loss for his team.
“I mean we were better down a man, which you know is a little bit weird,” Van der Sluijs said. “We think we want to settle in and I think we just take too long to go get a game."
With only Volleyball securing a Horizon League win, both soccer teams will continue to fight for redemption in their next Horizon League matches.
Men's soccer will battle against their Rival Northern Kentucky University on Wednesday, Oct. 7, and the women's team will take on Green Bay University Thursday, Oct. 1. Fans not able to attend the home game can stream on ESPN+.
