With just two games remaining in conference play, Illinois soccer will be preparing to claim a positive result against Wisconsin in its trip to Madison on Thursday night. The Illini will be hoping to bounce back after taking a thrashing against No. 20 Ohio State.

There’s no sugarcoating what happened on Sunday. Illinois suffered a devastating 6-1 defeat against Ohio State in its return to Champaign. Despite putting up a fight in the first half and finding themselves down by only one at halftime, the Illini went on to concede four consecutive goals, bringing the Buckeyes’ tally to six.

Illinois is now on the wrong side of a combined record of 1-4 against ranked teams this season. The Illini have been outscored by a combined 16-2 score in their five matches against ranked opposition in 2022 and collapsed in the second half of almost every one of these games.

The team has a chance to right the ship with a game against an unranked Wisconsin side, however, the neighbors to the north are a strong team with five Big Ten wins in eight matches. The question Illinois has been trying to answer in terms of how to put together a complete 90-minute performance is once again going to be raised on Thursday night.

The Illini have the personnel to be successful, and the coaching staff has full faith in the squad.

“This team is full of leaders,” head coach Janet Rayfield said. “You have players like Eileen Murphy who just want to compete. You have Kendra Pasquale who’s been leading this team, you have people in the background like Lilian Lucas who just does her job every day. Every player has a piece of being a leader in them and that’s something we try and develop throughout their career here.”

This Illini team has a chance to even the score against the Badgers, who lead in the all-time series with 12 wins to the Illini’s 11. There have been five draws between the two programs with the most recent matchup being a 1-1 result last year.

With talented players up front like junior forward Julia Eichenbaum, talented players in the midfield like redshirt senior Kendra Pasquale and talented players protecting the goal like junior goalkeeper Julia Cili, Illinois is far from being a bad team. The Illini had a spark in nonconference play that simply has not translated into the Big Ten. As Rayfield has expressed throughout the fall, it is very much a case of finding a way to finish matches in one of the toughest conferences in the country.

Illinois (7-7-2 overall, 2-5-1 B1G) will kickoff at 7 p.m. against Wisconsin (10-4-2 overall, 5-3 B1G) in Madison on Thursday.

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