Illinois has struggled to remain consistent throughout the season, and the problem afflicted the team again this past week.

In contrast to a dominant win Thursday night against Northwestern, Illinois fell 5-0 to Penn State on Sunday.

The team practiced at the Irwin Indoor Facility last week to prepare for Northwestern’s turf field. Illinois went down early but powered back to win 3-1 behind a Janelle Flaws hat-trick.

Under the gaze of the Big Ten Network on Sunday, the Illini were anything but comfortable. The Nittany Lions took an early lead with a pair of goals in the seventh and 13th minute and continued to threaten the Illinois goal throughout.

“I think it’s natural to get frustrated when we concede early, but we’re going to have to pick our heads back up for the rest of the Big Ten (season).” midfielder Meegan Johnston said.

The difference in the outcomes this weekend was the team’s response. Against Northwestern, Illinois conceded the early goal but responded by tightening up at the back and pushing forward for an equalizer. The win was the first time this season the team earned a victory after conceding the first goal of the game.

The team seemed to get down on itself after allowing the first goal at Penn State, as it has many times this season. Head coach Janet Rayfield suggested the team’s inexperience in that situation as an explanation and that in the future the underclassmen, who make up a large contingent of the team, would need to step up in those big games for the team to overcome them.

Defensive experimentation

Due to injuries in the game against Iowa earlier this year, Rayfield had to draft players into different roles than those to which they were accustomed. In the six games since then, the defensive line has seen several tweaks in the quest to find the best shape. Midfielder Aliina Weykamp has been pulled from the midfield and back into the defense on occasion with defender Kassidy Brown going the other way. There has also been restructuring within the defense as center back Christina Farrell has spent some time at outside back.

Thursday, the formation featured the Weykamp-Brown swap face of the defense, and although the Illini started conceding early, they held the Wildcats to that lone fifth minute goal.

“This group has the right mix of things,” Rayfield said after Thursday’s game. “I think we’ve found a group that is healthy, and we can go with and get some consistency and that is going to help.”

With midfielder Nicole Breece out for Sunday’s game, the Illinois lined up in a 5-3-2 formation with Noelle Leary joining the back line and Weykamp back in the midfield. The level of familiarity with the new formation outweighed the extra player added to the back as they lost by a large margin.

Flaws record

Coming into this year Flaws had only three goals in an injury-plagued collegiate career. She missed her first year in 2010 after tearing her ACL in her final high school game. She had a reoccurrence of the same injury in the 2012 season and missed the rest of that year as well.

Flaws confirmed earlier this season that she would be petitioning for a sixth year of NCAA eligibility because she was yet to accomplish some of the goals she set for herself coming into Illinois.

“I’d love to leave having my name in the record books,” said Flaws after a fast start saw her score five goals in the first four games.

She achieved that goal Thursday night as her hat-trick has her with an 18-goal tally this season, tied with Emily Brown’s school-record 1999 season. She attributed her success this year to a natural instinct for the goal and her teammates.

“I’m just looking to get to the goal; it’s something I’ve done since I was four or five playing soccer,” she said after the game. “I have confidence making the runs I make because I have confidence that the people I’m playing with can connect those passes.”

Lanre can be reached at [email protected] and @WriterLanre.