Eastern Illinois (0-3-1) at Northern Illinois (3-2-1)
Tuesday, September 16
7 pm at DeKalb, Ill. (NIU Soccer & Track Complex)
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ON-TAP: Eastern Illinois returns to action following a 10-day layoff as the Panthers play their fifth match of the 2025 season.   EIU will travel on Tuesday night to play at Northern Illinois.   In EIU's last outing, the Panthers played to a 1-1 draw with Milwaukee picking up the first points decision for first-year head coach Ruy Vaz.  EIU enters the match at 0-3-1.   Northern Illinois is 3-2-1 on the year after a loss on Saturday to St. Thomas. 

NEXT UP: EIU has two night matches this week with the Tuesday contest at Northern Illinois and then a Sunday evening contest at Central Arkansas.   Following that the Panthers open Ohio Valley Conference play on the road on Saturday, Sept. 27 at Western Illinois.
 
HOME OPENER: Eastern Illinois opens the first month of the 2025 season on the road with seven matches away from Lakeside Field in September.   EIU's home opener will be on Thursday, October 2 hosting Lindenwood in Ohio Valley Conference action. 

BOYKIN SCORES FIRST: Adam Boykin was the first Eastern Illinois player to find the back of the net as he scored in the match at Milwaukee.  It was the second career goal for Boykin who scored last season with the game winner against Western Illinois.

BARBA IN THE NET: Eastern Illinois has three goalkeepers on its roster that all saw time during the preseason exhibition schedule.  For the regular season transfer goalkeeper Franco Barba has won the job and played all four matches to date.  Barba posted a tie against Milwaukee in his last outing.  For the year he has made 33 saves with a 2.00 goals against average.  His 8.25 saves per game currently leads the OVC.

RETURNING OFFENSE: Eastern Illinois has just three players returning from last year that scored during the 2024 season.  Senior Casey Welage, sophomore David Brown and sophomore Adam Boykin all found the back of the net last season.  Welage scored his goal in the 2024 season opener against University of Chicago.  Brown had his goal against Southern Indiana in OVC play adding an assist in that contest.  Boykin scored his goal with a game winner against Western Illinois.

RETURNING FACES: Eastern Illinois has eight players returning from last year's roster with Casey Welage the lone veteran in the group.  Welage has been a three-year member of the Panthers soccer program appearing in 38 matches during his time.  Last season Welage played in ten matches.   The other seven faces are either sophomores or redshirt sophomores with a combined 69 matches played at EIU.

NEW FACES: You will need a score card to follow the 2025 Eastern Illinois Panthers early in the season as they feature 24 new players with a mixture of freshmen (9), junior college (6) and four-year (9) transfer players.  The new roster also has an international flair with players on the EIU roster hailing from Brazil, Japan, Portugal, Spain and Uruguay.

OVC PLAYER TO WATCH: With just eight returning faces from last year's team transfer midfielder Yukia Nakamura was named the OVC preseason player to watch for Eastern Illinois this season. Nakamura played two seasons at Cowley College for current EIU head coach Ruy Vaz before playing the 2024 campaign at Georgia State.  At GSU, Nakamura started 17 matches notching one assist against Marshall. 

EXHIBITION GOALS: Eastern Illinois played three exhibition matches at home prior the start of the 2025 season. EIU opened with an exhibition stretch against Parkland College followed by contests against Evansville and Greenville College.  In the two matches against NCAA four-year schools, EIU posted seven goals with scores coming from Saneyuki Yamagata (2), Nate Hagemann, Gui Gragnano, Max Sudor, Casey Welage and Shutaro Endo.

OVC PRESEASON PREDICTIONS: With only eight returning players from last season and a new coaching staff, Eastern Illinois was selected to finish seventh in the Ohio Valley Conference preseason poll.  SIUE was picked to finish first in the league race with Houston Christian second in the preseason voting. 

SERIES HISTORY: Eastern Illinois and Northern Illinois will be meeting for the 31st time on Tuesday evening.  The Panthers hold a 16-11-3 all-time lead in the series which dates back to 1963 with EIU posting a 1-0 win in the first match-up.  NIU won the last meeting 5-1 in 2021 and has won three straight in the series.  EIU's last win was 1-0 in October 2016.

HEAD COACH:  Ruy Vaz was hired in February 2025 and became the 12th head coach in Eastern Illinois men's soccer history.  Vaz was a successful coach at the junior college level winning 110 matches with six NJCAA National Tournament appearances during seven seasons leading the Cowley College program in Kansas from 2018-24.  He coached 10-plus JUCO All-Americans with numerous players going on to play at the four-year collegiate level.  Of his six NJCAA National Tournament finishes he had two final four appearances and one championship game appearance.  His collegiate coaching record is 110-21-6 at Cowley College.  Vaz is a 2015 graduate of Oklahoma City University where he played soccer.