DEKALB, Ill. – After defeating Bowling Green on the road in the quarterfinals, the Northern Illinois University men's soccer team heads back on the road for the Missouri Valley Conference Tournament Semifinals as the Huskies face regular season champion, and top-seeded, Western Michigan on Wednesday afternoon (Nov. 8) in Kalamazoo, Mich. Kickoff for Wednesday's semifinal is scheduled for 1 p.m. CT and will be available on ESPN+.
"We are really excited to still be competing for the championship," said NIU head coach
Ryan Swan. "We are looking forward to getting up to Kalamazoo. Playing the one seed, while there are challenges to that, those are the games you want, you want to play against top teams. Our guys are up for it, and we can't wait to get on the field."
NIU (7-8-1), the tournament's fifth seed, earned a 2-1 victory at Bowling Green on Sunday (Nov. 5) in the quarterfinals to advance to Wednesday's semifinal. Huskie goalkeeper
Jakub Rojek (Chicago, Ill./Von Steuben) made 11 saves against the Falcons, including a 12th minute penalty to help the Huskies advance. Rojek's 11 stops are the most in 90 minutes for a Huskie goalkeeper since Andrew Glaeser made 12 against top-ranked Creighton on Sept. 22, 2015.
Rojek is currently ranked fourth in the country averaging 5.77 saves per game.
Diego Maynez (El Paso, Texas/Lone Star) scored the opening goal against Bowling Green and
Camilo Estrada (Dallas, Texas/Lone Star) tallied the game winner. For Maynez, the goal was his first of the season and the seventh of his NIU career. Three of his seven career goals have come in the postseason as he netted two in the NCAA Tournament First Round against Oakland in 2021.
Estrada's goal was his fourth of the year, which is tied for the team lead with
Taisei Arima (Machida, Japan/Seiryo) and
Angel Rodriguez (Elgin, Ill./Ignite Christian Academy).
Top-seeded, and 16th-ranked, Western Michigan, who earned a bye in the quarterfinals, comes into Wednesday's game with a 13-1-3 overall record. The Broncos' only loss came in the season opener at 12th-ranked Vermont, 2-0, on Aug. 24. Western Michigan enters the tournament on a six-match win streak. Dylan Sing has scored a team-high 14 goals while Charlie Sharp has added 11, Ethan Brandt has started all 17 matches in goal for Western Michigan, he has a 0.78 goals against average and a .800 save percentage.
Western Michigan won the regular season meeting between the two schools, 3-1, on Oct. 18 in Kalamazoo. Sing scored twice and Tom Cooklin also added a goal for the Broncos, Arima tallied the lone goal for the Huskies in the contest.
The winner of the NIU-Western Michigan semifinal will face the winner of the Missouri State-UIC semifinal on Saturday, Nov. 11, at 12 p.m. CT in Kalamazoo.
