The Horned Frog soccer team will host Sam Houston State and Boise State over the weekend at Garvey-Rosenthal Stadium.The game against Sam Houston State, originally to be played last Sunday, was rescheduled due to Hurricane Rita.

“We’re definitely excited to get a chance to play again this weekend,” junior forward Angie Nickens said.

By maintaining the regular practice schedule and using scrimmages to help simulate the competition level of game situations, the Horned Frogs feel ready to hit the field, although it is still difficult to go a full week without playing, junior midfielder Karissa Hill said.

The Horned Frogs have never faced Sam Houston State or Boise State before, but their approach will be no different than any other game.

“We’ll just go out like we do every game, give it everything we’ve got and leave it all on the field,” Hill said.

The weekend off gave players and coaches an opportunity to re-examine their team play throughout the season.

“It gave us a chance to really look at our games in the past,” Nickens said. “We went over a lot of video and got to work on some things that we needed to work on.”

Pleased with the offensive strategy, head coach Dan Abdalla stressed focusing on defense in the final two games before opening conference play Thursday.

“Our goal this weekend is to come out of (the games) as clean defensively as possible,” Abdalla said

Nickens also said the team is working on transitioning between offensive and defensive modes once losing or gaining the ball.

The team sees this weekend as a time to fine-tune skills and rekindle their energy for the first conference matchup.

“It’s good that the week where we (didn’t) have any games (wasn’t) right before conference,” Hill said. “It will be good to get our feet wet again.”

Kickoff against Sam Houston State is today at 4 p.m, while Boise State will provide the opposition Sunday at 1 p.m.