DEKALB, Ill. - The Western Michigan men's soccer team came up just short in a comeback bid at Northern Illinois, falling by a final score of 3-2. The Broncos, who are now 1-1-1 in Mid-American Conference play and 9-5-1 overall, suffered their first loss in the month of October after going unbeaten in their last six matches.
"You have to give NIU credit for competing with us over the course of the full 90 minutes," said head coach
Chad Wiseman. "We were a bit unlucky in the opening 20 minutes after putting two off the cross bar. Our individual defending off set pieces and against the counter was poor tonight."
Western Michigan had the first major offensive opportunity of the first half, with senior captain
Giuseppe Vitale breaking past the NIU defense in the 15th minute. Vitale's strike sailed above the hands of goalkeeper Martin Sanchez, but the ball ricocheted off the top of the post to keep the match scoreless early on.
Senior forward Jan Maertens scored his fifth goal of the year to put the Huskies up 1-0 in the 23rd minute. Northern Illinois struck again four minutes later when sophomore defender Anthony Markanich, who assisted on the first scoring play, recorded an unassisted goal following a corner kick opportunity for his team. The two goal deficit was the largest the Broncos had faced this season.
Western Michigan started to take back the momentum late in the half, earning four corner kicks in a span of 3:15 beginning in the 39th minute.
During that stretch, redshirt freshman midfielder
Antonio Rizzo scored his first collegiate career goal only thirteen seconds after coming into the game for
Brennan Creek. Rizzo put away a rebound following a shot that went off the post from freshman forward
Dylan Sing, who was credited with an assist. Another freshman Bronco in
Max Keenan also earned an assist on the goal and he is once again tied for the team lead in that category with six total.
WMU has now scored in eight consecutive matches and have earned a goal in the first half of its last six contests.
Sophomore
Lukas Von Lienen started the second half in net for Western Michigan, ending
Isaac Walker's streak of 560 consecutive minutes played. The redshirt freshman from Orlando, Fla., amassed a record of 5-0-1 during that stretch for the Broncos.
In the 65th minute, freshman midfielder
Charlie Sharp tied the match at two after scoring his fourth goal in the last five contests for the Broncos. Sharp has now pushed his consecutive point streak to six games, having collected ten points so far in the month of October. He is just one game away from tying the program record of seven consecutive matches with a point, which is shared by Steve Bibi (1996) and Rick Collins (1984).
Sing earned his second assist of the evening on the goal, while senior defender
Paul Liagre picked up his third helper of the 2019 campaign.
A few minutes later, Northern Illinois committed a foul in its defensive box, giving WMU a penalty shot opportunity. Graduate defender
Sam Biek took the penalty for the Broncos, but his attempt was stopped by Martin Sanchez.
"We found a way to get back into the game and had a chance to take the lead with a penalty but couldn't convert," Wiseman remarked.
Jan Maertens scored his second goal of the night with 14 minutes remaining in regulation, which would hold as the game winner for the Huskies.
The Broncos out-shot NIU 14-12 and forced seven more corner kick chances on the evening.
"I think our young and new guys learned a good lesson tonight," stated Wiseman. "They were shown how hard you need to compete to pick up road points in this conference. We have a tough team and I expect that they will have a good response moving forward."
Western Michigan will conclude regular season non-conference play this Tuesday evening at Detroit Mercy.
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