After playing its last two games on the road, Illinois soccer will be returning home to Demirjian Park to welcome No. 20 Ohio State. The Illini split the previous two matches 1-1, with a win over the Boilermakers before falling to the Cornhuskers.

Illinois has struggled to put together ‘complete’ performances against Big Ten opposition. Specifically, the Illini have been prone to falling apart in the second halves of matches, something that was evident in their most recent defeat against Nebraska.

Despite a wonder goal from junior forward Makala Woods in the 38th minute, Illinois let the lead slip coming out of the halftime break. The Cornhuskers would go on to score three unanswered goals to claim all three points.

The Illini’s lack of consistency has resulted in score lines that didn’t accurately reflect the nature of the game. Particularly against Michigan State and No. 8 Northwestern, Illinois managed to put up strong first-half performances but fell 3-0 and 4-0 respectively due to a second-half collapse. Particularly against the top-10 Wildcats, the Illini did extremely well to test their in-state rivals and were unlucky not to find a goal. However, a disastrous performance coming out of the break saw the match end in another frustrating defeat.

With No. 20 Ohio State coming to town, Illinois needs to figure out how to keep the energy up during the full 90 minutes if it wants to earn any points on Sunday. Ohio State’s only defeat in conference play came at the hands of the then No. 4 Rutgers, and most recently the team cruised past Maryland by a whopping 7-0 result.

Ohio State leads in the all-time series against Illinois 12-9-4. In addition to beating the Illini 2-1 in their previous encounter, the Buckeyes are on a six-game unbeaten streak and average 2.143 goals per match to the Illini’s 1.267 goals per match average.

The 2022 Big Ten campaign hasn’t been significantly better than last year for Illinois. There have been marginal improvements but it was never going to take much to upgrade from the one-win 2021 conference season. The Illini have two matches after Sunday’s showdown with the Buckeyes to scrape together a few more points before the end of conference play.

Illinois (7-6-2 overall, 2-4-1 B1G) will kickoff its hunt for an upset over No. 20 Ohio State (9-2-3 overall, 4-1-2 B1G) at 1 p.m. on Sunday. The match will take place at Demirjian Park and will serve as the team’s second to last home fixture of the season.

@james_kim15

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