DEKALB, Ill. – Tyra King (Menifee, Calif./Metea Valley) scored in the 36th minute and Morgan Lucich (Rancho Santa Margarita, Calif./Trabuco Hills) made a pair of saves as the Northern Illinois University women's soccer team topped DePaul, 1-0, on Sunday evening (Aug. 17) at the NIU Soccer Complex. 

The victory was NIU's first over DePaul since 2005, breaking a four-game winless streak against the Blue Demons. 

"Really proud of the group," said NIU head coach Michael O'Neill. "I thought it was a good performance in the first half, a good and fluid attacking performance. We created a lot of chances through wide areas but, more importantly, throughout the 90 minutes defensively we were very sound. The team bought into the game plan we were trying to get out of them, and they were ready today."

NIU (1-1) was on the front-foot right from the start in the contest as King forced DePaul goalkeeper Mason Hillery into a pair of saves in the opening quarter-hour. 

Just past the half-hour mark, Alyssa Stephenson (Oakville, Ontario/St. Ignatius of Loyola) had an excellent chance cutting in from the right side and firing a shot that forced Hillery into a diving save. 

King broke the deadlock 36th minute off a goal from a corner. Laurina Bilombo-Bemba (Laval, Quebec/Antoine de Saint-Exupéry) found the near post run of King from the corner and the Huskie junior forward headed it past Hillery for what would prove to be the winning goal. 

"Set pieces win games," said O'Neill. "We have been on the end (wrong) of them, we have won games from them. For all the attacking and final third quality, we won the game from a corner kick. It was a great delivery from Laurina and a great run (by Tyra). Credit to Luke (Aspinall-Stanton), our assistant coach, for drawing that play up a couple of weeks ago, it was nice to see it work and hopefully we can score more from corner kicks moving forward."

After being held without a shot on target in the opening 45 minutes, the NIU backline limited DePaul to just a pair of efforts on goal in the second 45. Sydnee Maxwell had a long-distance attempt saved by Lucich in the 56th minute and Grace Menser saw her tame effort stopped in the 68th minute as Lucich picked up her first victory and shutout as a Huskie. 

NIU will return to action next weekend with a pair of matches in the State of Minnesota. The Huskies will first travel to St. Thomas on Thursday, Aug. 21, before visiting the 24th-ranked Minnesota Golden Gophers on Sunday, Aug. 24.