NORMAL, Ill. - The Illinois State women's soccer team, the defending Missouri Valley Conference regular season champions, has its 2008 schedule set. Head coach Drew Roff enters his second season with the Redbirds with a 19-game slate that features 13 non-conference matches and eight home games. ISU is a combined 74-45-16 all-time against its 2008 opponents, four of which participated in the 2007 NCAA Tournament.
The Redbirds return 14 players from 2007 and welcome in nine freshman for the 2008 season. Roff acknowledges the challenges that lie ahead for this team with the level of competition it will face, but is confident his players can handle them.
"Our 2008 schedule is going to be very challenging to say the least," said Roff. "The non-conference portion of our schedule includes seven-straight games on the road against some great competition, including three NCAA tournament teams from last season. With a young team next fall we will find out very quickly what our strengths and weaknesses are and we will use those early-season matches to really find out what kind of team we can be. The bright side of playing such a difficult schedule early on is that it will prepare us for the always tough competition we will face in the Missouri Valley Conference."
After an exhibition game against Missouri (Aug. 17), the Redbirds open the regular season at home against IPFW on Aug. 22. ISU then embarks on seven-consecutive road games over the next three weeks, starting with a game at Green Bay on August 24. The Redbirds then play two games in Chicago on Labor Day weekend, facing Loyola (Aug. 30) and Northwestern (Sep. 1) at Northwestern's Thomas Athletic Complex.
Another Big Ten team awaits the Redbirds the following weekend when they visit Purdue, the reigning conference champion, on Sep. 5. It will be the first time the Redbirds and Boilermakers have faced one another on the soccer pitch since 2003. ISU then visits UW-Milwaukee on Sep. 7, when sophomore midfielder Ammanda Wisniewski will have a chance to play against her sister, Andrea.
The road swing ends with Illinois State's first-ever games against teams from Florida. The Redbirds visit Central Florida (Sep. 12) and South Florida (Sep. 14) during their first trip to the Sunshine State. UCF was an at-large bid in the NCAA Tournament last season, beating Auburn in the first round and tying Florida in the second round, but the Gators advanced on penalty kicks.
ISU returns home for three-straight non-conference games before the beginning of its conference schedule, hosting Western Illinois (Sep. 19), Butler (Sep. 21) and Morehead State (Sep. 24). A meeting with Big 12 opponent Iowa State (Oct. 10) is mixed in the middle of the conference slate.
Road games against Evansville (Sep. 27) and Creighton (Oct. 4) begin the Missouri Valley Conference portion of the Redbird season. The Purple Aces and Bluejays finished second and third in the regular season in the Valley last season, respectively. Creighton beat ISU in penalty kicks in the 2007 State Farm MVC Tournament final to advance to the NCAA Tournament.
The Redbirds close out the season with a four-game homestand against Northern Iowa (Oct. 12), Indiana State (Oct. 19), Missouri State (Oct. 26) and Eastern Illinois (Oct. 29). They were a combined 3-0-1 against those four teams last season. The regular season concludes with a match at Drake (Nov. 1), a team ISU beat twice last year.
