The Lagoon Field will be a welcome site for the Rams who return home after going 0-3 on their three-game road trip.

The Colorado State (1-3-1) women’s soccer team is back in Fort Collins to face Northwestern (4-1-1) at 4 p.m. Friday.

“It’s gonna be really good to be at home versus Northwestern,” said CSU’s junior goalkeeper Jesse McGinley. “I am excited to see what this weekend has in store. I think we will do well.”

Just like the football team, the Rams will be facing a tough Big-10 opponent this weekend. Northwestern holds a 4-1-1 record on the year, and the Rams will need to execute better in order to pull off the upset, according to coach Bill Hempen.

“It’s a pretty simple formula,” Hempen said. “If we can limit our turnovers, be a little bit more successful in the possession game and execute in front of the goal – use that hunger and desire to score – that’s what its gonna take to beat a Big-10 team like (Northwestern).”

If CSU can follow Hempen’s recipe for success, an upset may be looming. It would be a much-needed lift for the Rams, who have fallen by one goal in each of their last three matches.

Going into the California trip last weekend, the Rams scored in each of the first two games and were off to a nice start at 1-0-1. California would prove to be a roadblock, however, as CSU couldn’t manage to net a single goal on trip, losing both matches 1-0.

“I broke my own rule last week,” Hempen said. “I said, ‘Look, we scored a goal in every game,’ and then we go out to California and don’t score at all, so I screwed that up. But we are getting a little bit better.”

While the coach may believe he jinxed his team, causing the scoring drought, it is undeniable that the Rams have played well even with the three losses.

“We have really come together as a group,” McGinley said. “A lot of the younger players and a lot of the new players that came in have helped push us older players to be the players we needed to be last year.”

McGinley and the Rams take on Northwestern at 4 p.m. Friday at Lagoon Field.

They will also be in action at 7 p.m. Sunday when they travel to Greeley to take on Northern Colorado.

Collegian Soccer Reporter Chad Deutschman can be reached at sports@collegian.com and on Twitter @ChadDeutschman.