Tough road trip awaits Boilermakers

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. (WLFI) - Purdue women’s soccer continues Big Ten play this weekend with its longest road trip of the season, heading west for games at Nebraska Friday and Iowa Sunday.

The Boilermakers (5-3-1, 0-1-0 Big Ten) visit Lincoln for the first time since 2004. Friday’s game is set to kickoff at 5:30 p.m. ET at the Nebraska Soccer Field. Purdue will spend the majority of the weekend in the Iowa City area, taking on the Hawkeyes (9-1, 0-1 Big Ten) at 2 p.m. ET Sunday at the Iowa Soccer Complex. Live play-per-view video webcasts of both games will be available via BTN.com.

Along with playing six of their 11 Big Ten games on the road this season, the Boilers were scheduled to play their first three conference dates on the road. A month from now, Purdue will have the advantage of playing its final three Big Ten games at home.

The Boilermakers have scored first in seven of their first nine games this season. With two of Purdue’s three losses coming in overtime, the team has not trailed very frequently in the actual run of play this season. The Boilermakers have trailed for only 37 minutes and 36 seconds of game action of the 865 minutes they have played. That calculates out to only 4.4 percent of the total minutes. Purdue has lost in overtime in each of its first two road games this year.

Jordan Pawlik enters the weekend ranking third in the Big Ten with seven goals. She accounted for the team’s lone goal in the Big Ten opener at Michigan State Sunday, scoring in her Big Ten debut. The junior transfer from Louisville joined Alex Hairston among a group of six Purdue players in program history to score in their first Big Ten games. Pawlik has already exceeded her goal total in her two seasons at Louisville, where she scored four times in 39 games (35 starts).

Five of the last seven Purdue-Iowa games have gone to overtime, including last year’s 1-1 draw in West Lafayette. Hairston scored the Boilers’ goal in the 12th minute but Iowa was able to equalize about 12 minutes later. Purdue will be in search of its first win in Iowa City since 2008.

Nebraska (4-4-1, 1-0-0 Big Ten) won its Big Ten opener at Northwestern Friday, 2-0. In her season debut, senior Jordan Jackson scored the game-winner and assisted on Mayme Conroy’s insurance goal. Jackson was sidelined by a knee injury for the first six games of the year. Defender Ari Romero also recently returned to the lineup for the Huskers after missing the first four games of the year while starting for Team Mexico at the U20 World Cup in Japan.

Remarkably, Iowa did not lose a nonconference game for the second year in a row, outscoring the opposition 71-8 during its current 18-game nonconference win streak. The Hawkeyes finished their 2011 campaign with a 13-4-3 record, placing fifth in the Big Ten, but were left out of the NCAA Tournament field.