MACOMB, Ill. – The Western Illinois women's soccer team released its 2010 regular season schedule, Wednesday, Jan. 27. The schedule features 20 regular season matches, including one regular season tournament and a home-and-home series against future Summit League member South Dakota.

"It's really good for us to be playing some teams that we've never played against," Western Illinois head coach Tony Guinn said. "It will be a great experience for the team to travel to different areas of the country and see places they haven't been before."

The 2010 schedule does not include any of the traditional exhibition matches, meaning each game carries more importance than in years past.

"Given the opportunity to play 20 games each year we'd rather have each one count for something," Guinn said. "Exhibition games are nice, but we play enough of those in the spring. I think the added importance with each game counting this year will help us focus."

The schedule begins with consecutive home matches against William Penn and South Dakota on Aug. 20 and 22. South Dakota is finishing its transition to become a Division I member and will join The Summit League as a full-time member for the 2011-12 season.

The team then heads to Tennessee for the Austin Peay Invitational where it will face Southeast Missouri State and tournament host Austin Peay on Aug. 27 and 29. The roadtrip will continue with a match at Grandview on Sept. 3 and a rematch with South Dakota at Vermillion, S.D. on Sept. 6.

The Fighting Leathernecks will return home against SIU-Edwardsville on Sept. 9 before traveling to Davenport, Iowa to take on St. Ambrose on Sept. 12. In all, Western will play five of its first eight matches on the road.

"I don't think it will effect us to be on the road that much early on," Guinn said. "It's a good chance for the players to get used to all the travel early on in the season so that later in the year they know what to expect."

After the team's trip to St. Ambrose, the Leathernecks will host Green Bay on Sept. 16 and Eastern Illinois on Sept. 19 before heading to Northern Iowa for their last non-conference match on Sept. 29.

Summit League play begins for Western with two straight home matches. The Leathernecks host UMKC on Oct. 1 and face Southern Utah on Oct. 3 before heading to the Dakotas for a matches against North Dakota State and South Dakota State on Oct. 8 and 10, respectively.

"Our conference schedule is always tough, especially with the addition of the two Dakota schools over the past few years," Guinn said. "Those two universities have really raised the bar in our league, they have great fan bases and they've really done a good job of producing highly competitive teams."

Western continues league play with its final two home matches against Oral Roberts on Oct. 15 and Centenary on Oct. 17. The Leathernecks will then hit the road again for three straight matches away from home to end the season.

The team will travel to IPFW on Oct. 22 and Oakland on Oct. 24 before concluding its regular season at defending league champion IUPUI on Oct. 31.

Since Guinn's arrival in 2007, Western Illinois has posted a combined 11-1-0 record over the last four matches of each regular season, something that the team will look to continue in 2010.

"Being on the road is never easy but we've really played well in the latter stages of the season in recent years," Guinn said. "You want to be playing your best at the end of the year and that's something we've been able to do in each of the last three seasons."

The Summit League Tournament will take place at a site yet to be determined from Nov. 5-7 with the winner advancing to the NCAA College Cup, which begins on Nov. 12.