After a three-game road stretch, the Kent State women’s soccer team returns home Friday to host the Youngstown State Penguins (1-6-1).

The Flashes (4-3-0), who are 3-0 at home so far this season, are returning to Zoeller Field for the first time in two weeks and hope to build off home-field momentum to boost their record up to 4-0.

“[The team] loves playing at home,” head coach Rob Marinaro said. “They love the excitement of coming onto their home field, so that’s always a major plus.”

Kent State, which has had a rougher time on the road with a 1-3 record, is coming off a 2-1 loss against Cincinnati last Sunday. Kent State got off to a slow start in the first half, allowing the Bearcats to score their first goal in the 34th minute of regulation.

The Flashes came out strong in the second half, finally getting on the scoreboard when a shot by sophomore Madison Helterbran found the back of the net. Despite Kent State’s second-half efforts, the Flashes ran out of time in the game and came up short to the Bearcats.

As Kent State heads into its home game Friday against the Penguins, Marinaro said he has been working with his team this week on different movements with the offense to create more scoring opportunities, especially early on in games.

“We’re trying to create different kinds of opportunities to break teams down in many different ways,” Marinaro said. “We did a really nice job with it [in practice], so hopefully we can bring some of that to the table on Friday.”

Since Youngstown is only about 45 minutes away from Kent, the Flashes have had many opportunities over the years to face their proximate adversary. In the 10 times Kent State and Youngstown State have met since 1997, the Flashes have come out on top nine times.

Although Kent State significantly leads the all-time series with the Penguins, Marinaro said Youngstown State is a hard-working team that defends extremely well and has not given up a lot of goals so far this season.

“We’re going to have to look to create some offense and finish opportunities, but at the same time, they’re dangerous coming out on the counter attack,” Marinaro said. “So we gotta make sure we defend really well as a team.”

The Penguins have only given up 10 goals in eight games and have lost all their games by one goal.

Sophomore defender Briana Bartolone said effective on-field communication and coming out strong are the Flashes’ main objectives going into Friday’s game.

“We need to make a lot more runs and hold the ball more instead of dribbling like we’ve been doing. If we connect with each other, we’ll have a lot more opportunities keeping [the ball] forward,” Bartolone said.

Friday’s action begins at 4 p.m.

Contact Richie Mulhall[email protected].