DEKALB, Ill. – The Northern Illinois University men's soccer team opens the 2016 regular season with a pair of road games this weekend. The Huskies travel to SIU Edwardsville for the season opener on Friday, Aug. 26 at 7 p.m., before visiting Marquette on Monday, Aug. 29 at 7 p.m.

"We are excited," said NIU head coach Eric Luzzi. "It was a good preseason, the guys worked hard and made a lot of progress in a lot of different areas. We know that SIUE is a very good team, we have a plan for some of the things we think they are going to do and I think it will be a great college soccer game and a great first game for our team.

"I think our guys know that we are always going to put together a tough schedule and this opening weekend is in line with the standards we have for wanting to challenge our team. We are going to put them in situations against top teams, in good facilities, in good environments and it should be a good weekend."

NIU brought back eight starters, and 15 letterwinners, from last season's team that went 7-7-1, including junior defender Luke Read (Ilford, England/Barking Abbey School) who earned All-MAC and NSCAA All-Great Lakes Region honors a season ago. The Huskies closed their exhibition slate with a 3-1 setback against Drake last Sunday (Aug. 21), junior Giovanni Garcia (Chicago, Ill./Elk Grove) scored for the Huskies in the contest.

The Huskies are entering their eighth season under head coach Eric Luzzi, and have a 3-2-2 record in season openers under Luzzi. NIU is unbeaten in its last three season openers, including a 1-0 victory over Green Bay last year (Aug. 28, 2015) when Richard Hall's (Billericay, England/The Billericay School) 106th minute goal lifted NIU past the Phoenix.

SIUE posted a 12-4-2 record a season ago, winning the Missouri Valley Conference regular season title. The Cougars are the preseason favorite in the Missouri Valley and are led by a trio of preseason all-conference selections, senior midfielder Ivan Gutierrez, junior forward Devyn Jambga and senior defender Austin Ledbetter. SIUE defeated Dayton while tying Notre Dame and Kentucky during the preseason.

Marquette finished last season with a 5-10-2 mark and were picked to finish seventh in the Big East this season. Senior defender John Pothast was selected to the preseason all-conference team. Marquette defeated Detroit, drew with Nebraska Omaha and fell to Wright State in its exhibition schedule. The Golden Eagles will host Kentucky to open the season on Friday night, Aug. 26, before welcoming NIU to Milwaukee on Monday.

Following this weekend's two opening contests, the Huskies will travel to the State of Maryland as they continue their four-game opening road trip. The Huskies will visit Navy on Friday, Sept. 2, before meeting Maryland-Baltimore County on Sunday, Sept. 4. Those two games have swapped dates from the originally released schedule.