Former Illinois and Urbana star Ella Masar is recovering from an injury, but she's still enjoying her first season in professional soccer.

For the first time since 2005, Illinois and Illinois State will play in soccer.

The Redbirds will open their season with a 7 p.m. match in Champaign on Aug. 21. The Illini lead the all-time series 5-2-1, including a 3-0 win in the last meeting in 2005.

CHAMPAIGN — Basketball player Trent Meacham and soccer player Emily Zurrer earned the prestigious Big Ten Conference Medal of Honor on Tuesday night at the Fighting Illini Scholar-Athlete Awards Reception.

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Memorial Stadium in the hunt for World Cup.

CHAMPAIGN — Former Illini Ella Masar, an Urbana product, scored a goal to help lead the Chicago Red Stars to an 8-0 exhibition victory against Illinois on Tuesday night.

"I'm just so excited," she said. "I can't believe it's been a year since I've been on that field. I know I'm not going to be wearing orange and blue, but that doesn't take away the fact that I'm going to be playing in front of my home crowd one last time. To be able to look out in the crowd and know a lot of those people — and they've been there for the last four years and some of them a lot longer - it's a pretty remarkable feeling."

CHAMPAIGN — Former Illinois forward Ella Masar, an Urbana product, was invited to the U.S. Women’s National Team’s 17-day training camp.

Jeff Huth spent months researching how much Illinois has spent on recruiting in recent years. He found that across the board, the Illini are major players on the recruiting scene.