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Monday, November 2, 2015
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Sports
Season winding down for men’s soccer Regular season finale
Krystal Ward Staff writer
DeKalb | Men’s soccer (7-6-1, 1-2-1 MAC) fell 1-0 to Western Michigan (9-3-4, 2-1-1 MAC) Saturday night, giving the Huskies one more opportunity to clinch a spot in the MAC Tournament semifinal. A slower paced game was expected against WMU’s tough defense. Broncos goalkeeper Drew Shepherd had been forced to make only 21 saves coming into the game, and a lot of that had to do with the backline of WMU. NIU had only given up five goals in eight home games this season, but it had also only scored seven goals in eight games at home. The Huskies had a few opportunities to score against WMU’s defense but couldn’t capitalize on any of them. Freshman forward Giovanni Pacheco had the best scoring opportunity in the first period, but his shot went just wide off of the goal post. Sophomore defender Luke Read served a ball to sophomore midfielder Giovanni Garcia, who missed the goal late in the first period.
Who: Western Virginia When: 5 p.m. Friday Where: Morgantown, W.Va.
Atlee Hargis | Northern Star
Senior midfielder Bertrand Gaschot eludes a defender in Saturday’s game against Western Michigan. The Huskies fell 1-0.
NIU connected on its passes early midfielder Nicolas Wandl to Gasin the second period, leading to a chot, but Gaschot overshot the goal. Gaschot had another opportunity couple of scoring opportunities. The biggest was a cross from sophomore when his defender fell down after
battling in the box; however, Gaschot passed to freshman midfielder Kevin Rodriguez, and the Huskies received a corner kick.
“With the amount of rain tonight it kept getting a little bit out of reach, and I didn’t feel comfortable with the shot,” Gaschot said. “I probably should’ve shot looking back on it, but it’s just one of those things where I kept pushing it a little bit too far, and it was just out of reach.” The Broncos outshot the Huskies 11-7 and ended the game with a 1716 foul difference. Both teams made four saves. “Western Michigan’s a good team,” said head coach Eric Luzzi. “Over the 90 minutes there really wasn’t an ounce of difference between the two teams. They had one moment. They made a play. We had a couple chances to make our plays and we weren’t fortunate in those moments, but on the whole it was a solid performance.”
Men’s basketball on the verge of becoming dangerous Christopher Loggins Sports Editor T @NSSportsLoggins
Men’s basketball has not finished with a winning record since the 2005-06 season when it went 17-11, but Huskies fans have plenty of reasons to pick their heads up this year. The team won four-straight games to close out the regular season — including wins against Toledo, Western Michigan, Central Michigan and Ball State — before losing to Akron in the first round of the MAC Tournament last year. Though the loss was disappointing, the strong finish to the season was a bright spot considering all of the games were against conference opponents. It might be too soon to speak, but I expect the team to be much improved this season. I’m not expecting a flawless year, and I think it may take time to get things going, but I think the Huskies have a chance at
winning close to 20 games if they of turning the program around at a slow-but-steady pace. can stay consistent. Montgomery had much success as an assistant coach before his stint Improvements on the road The Huskies will have to perform with the Huskies, spending 10 seaa lot better on the road if they hope sons as an assistant and associate to see their fortunes change in the head coach at Michigan State as part upcoming season. They went 4-11 on of Tom Izzo’s staff. He led the Husthe road in 2014 compared to a 10-5 kies to their first MAC Tournament record at home. It’s usually expected win since 2003 in his first season that a team will perform better at with the team. “We are very excited for this uphome, but improvements definitely coming season,” Montgomery said. need to be made on away games. “When you win your last four reg- “Time flies; this is my fifth year now ular season games — one is against [at NIU], and I’ve been coaching on Central Michigan, who won the the collegiate level for 20 years now, MAC West — we won at Toledo, we and I’m just as excited in year five as beat Western Michigan finally, we I was in year one. We are less than beat Ball State — we had a lot of mo- three weeks away from the home mentum at the end of last season,” opener and it feels like it’s real now.” said head coach Mark Montgomery. High-accolade freshman class The Huskies have seven returning Slow-but-steady turnaround Montgomery is now 39-84 since players including five sophomores, taking over head coaching duties for two juniors and three seniors. Montthe Huskies in 2011, but the team has gomery said he’s played the returning improved drastically over the last players against the incoming freshtwo years. NIU finished 5-26 and man to bring the younger players 5-25 in his first two seasons, but have down to Earth. “Everyone has been talking about combined for a 29-33 record in two seasons since. He’s done a great job our freshmen class,” he said. “They’re
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coming in with high accolades because of what they’ve done in high school. I think that Jaylen Key will play the four or five, he’s probably our strongest freshman and is most ready to play right now. Levi Bradley — he is a little behind because he had to sit out a lot of the preseason with a shin injury — but he will definitely will be a stretch four-man for us.” Only two players averaged double figures in scoring last year, and the team shot just 31 percent from the three-point line. These numbers must be enhanced if NIU plans on playing deeper in the season. “We’re excited for the new challenges and opportunities we have this season,” Montgomery said. “We’ve put down some team goals and some basic goals we have every year. Of course we want to improve daily in every single practice, and we want to become great teammates. We want to learn and continue to learn how to compete and practice hard in every practice and then carry that over to games.
Season opener
Who: Cal State Northridge When: 7 p.m. Nov. 13 Where: Convocation Center
last year and was only outscored by an average of one point in its losses. Learning how to close games and what not to do in the last four to five minutes can separate great teams from good ones. It’s been a while since the team has had high success, so expectations for it may not be as high as it would hope. This can either drive a team to prove people wrong, or it could hamper a team’s confidence. Fans must be patient if they hope to see good results for men’s basketball. It won’t be an overnight affair, and it may take another year or two, but I expect to see a change in culture in the near future for the team. The Huskies kick off the season against Cal State Northridge at 7 p.m. Lessons from close losses NIU outrebounded its opponents Nov. 13 in DeKalb.
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