Women's soccer takes trip to Chicago, South Bend

This weekend the women's soccer team will finish their four game road trip with matches against No.7 Notre Dame and DePaul. After dropping the first two games of the road trip last weekend, the Huskies need a good result if they are to remain in the hunt for a top seed in the Big East tournament.

The Huskies go into the weekend with a record of 9-5-0 (4-3-0 Big East) and are a half game behind St. John's and West Virginia for first place in the Big East American division. Trailing only a half game behind UConn, however, are Marquette and USF. The Huskies cannot afford to drop any more conference games and risk falling out of contention.

"We want to have home field advantage in the playoffs," said coach Len Tsantiris. "We want to do whatever we can to start the tournament at home. These two games are very important right now."

A win at Notre Dame would be huge for the Huskies, who have not performed well on the road this season. The Fighting Irish are currently undefeated in Big East conference play and are coming off two huge road wins, including a 1-0 victory at No.10 Rutgers on Oct. 9.

The Huskies will have a chance to exorcise some demons during the match. Last year the Huskies season came to an end in South Bend in the Big East championship game. The Huskies made an improbable run to the finals and held a No.1 Notre Dame team that hadn't been shut out in regulation all season scoreless into overtime. But in the overtime period the Irish prevailed and the Huskies were sent home for the winter without an NCAA tournament bid for the first time in school history.

"I don't think [the players] will even think about it," Tsantiris said. "We're there for totally different reasons now and there were different reasons then. There's no comparison."

Following the Notre Dame match, the Huskies travel to Chicago to face DePaul. The Blue Demons are in the midst of an average season, currently holding a record of 8-6-2 (3-4-0 Big East) on the season. The match should prove to be more winnable for the Huskies, although Tsantiris and his team are not overlooking them.           "It's going to be a very difficult game," Tsantiris said.

DePaul is currently 1-3 in their last four games, with two of the losses coming in overtime against strong Big East opponents Pittsburgh and Rutgers. Regardless of the result against Notre Dame, this is a game that the Huskies cannot afford to lose.

With the season winding down, the Huskies are still in control of their own destiny. The strong play of several first year starters such as Linda Ruutu and the emergence of goalkeeper Jessica Dulski have been instrumental to the Huskies success this season. However, this weekend could very well make or break the team's season, and a poor performance could easily waste all the success that the Huskies have enjoyed up until this past weekend. The time has come for the Huskies to show their true colors, and either seize their place at the top of the Big East, or let their season slip away.