Last season the Illini soccer team was given an early exit from the NCAA Tournament; the Illini believe this season will be different.

The Illini travel to College Station, Texas to play Rice on Friday in the opening round of the tournament.

Last season, Illinois thought it looked too far ahead when it fell 2-0 to Western Michigan in the first round, junior defender Christen Karniski said. This year Karniski said the team is going to take it one game at a time.

“We know you either win or you’re done,” she said. “We learned from last year that you can’t take anything for granted. We can’t overlook anyone in this tournament. All these teams are great teams.”

For Rice, Friday’s game will mark the first-ever NCAA Tournament appearance in the program’s four-year history. The Owls finished in second place in both the Western Athletic Conference regular season and the postseason tournament. They finished the season with a record of 14-4-2 and broke school records in wins, goals (36) and shutouts (14).

The focus for the Illini will be more on themselves than their opponents.

“Rice is going to come out and play hard, and we have to not only match that, but come out and play harder than them,” Karniski said. “For us, we don’t have to worry about our opponent, we just have to come out with a lot of intensity.”

The Illini have had trouble scoring goals this season, but lately the team has put some points on the scoreboard. The Illini scored seven goals in their last two games.

“We’re putting it all together,” said senior forward Tara Hurless. “For awhile, we got into a slump. I know I didn’t score a goal in a four game stretch, but right now we’re playing well offensively.”

Although the scoring attack will be important, the Illini believe the key to winning will be their defense’s play.

“If the other team doesn’t score, then we cannot lose,” said junior defender Kelly Campbell. “For us, it all starts with our defense.”

In the Illini’s previous three tournament appearances, they have hosted the first two rounds. This season is the first time the program has to travel for an NCAA Tournament game.

The Illini are not worried about the travel causing a problem.

“We’ve been on the road a lot this year,” said head coach Janet Rayfield. “One of the things we talked about is how this season was going to prepare us for the postseason. If we’ve done anything, it’s traveled this year. We traveled to Penn State and Ohio State in the same weekend. We’ve got the travel legs underneath us and we’re hopefully going to use that experience to get us ready to play down there.”

If the Illini win on Friday, they are scheduled to face the winner of ninth-seeded Texas A&M; and Texas State on Sunday.

The Illini will be the underdogs in this bracket, but Rayfield said they play better in that role.

“I think we feel like we have more to prove when we are the underdogs,” Karniski said. “We all step up our games.”