Box Score DEKALB – The NIU women's soccer team (4-7-2, 3-3 MAC) dropped their match against Ball State (10-2-2, 5-0-1 MAC) 2-0 Sunday afternoon at the NIU Soccer Complex.
 
Ball State held the Huskies off of the shot sheet in the first half as they drove NIU to keep the ball on the outside of the field.
 
"We had good possession of the ball at times, they were sitting in forcing us to try to get into their pressure points," Head Coach John Ross said. "We just need to be cleaner around the box with our services, getting in behind them because their center backs are too good to not make them turn and run."
 
The Cardinals took the lead in the 26^th minute as Sam Kambol received the ball in the box, took one dribble to her right and fire the ball past Amy Annala into the top right corner of the goal to put Ball State up 1-0. BSU got their second goal of the game in the second half when Emily Scott broke behind the NIU defense on a headed ball from Peighton Cook and was able to beat Annala to double the Cardinal lead.
 
The Huskies are now past the halfway point in Mid-American Conference play with a 3-3 conference record. Four of their six conference matches came against the teams with the top four records in the MAC but NIU and Ross think they could have been better.
 
"We're a little disappointed, we expect more from ourselves," Ross said. "It would have been nice to get some more results but it's still a process and we have to go through that process throughout the whole year. We're in a position where we see a lot of positives and we just need to clean up some of the details."
 
NIU now has five games remaining on their schedule with the next two at home against Akron and Buffalo and the last three matches on the road at Toledo, Bowling Green and Western Michigan. The home games will be on Friday at 6 p.m. and next Sunday at 2 p.m. at the NIU Soccer Complex.