Northern Michigan University's Evelyn Flor, right, and Ferris State's Bri Rogers deflect the ball during the second half of their GLIAC women's soccer game played Friday at the Superior Dome in Marquette. (Journal photo by Ryan Stieg)

MARQUETTE — Looking back at last weekend, the Northern Michigan University women’s soccer team had some mixed results without losing.

The Wildcats kept the strong Ferris State offense off the scoreboard and then did the same thing to Northwood two days later, holding the latter without a shot.

On the other hand, NMU (4-2-1) was shut out by the GLIAC-leading Bulldogs as well and didn’t register a shot in the second half or in either overtime session.

Despite the offensive struggles, Northern head coach Jon Sandoval was feeling pretty good with how Friday’s match with Ferris went.

“We couldn’t get out of our half (of the field),” he said during a Monday Zoom interview. “We couldn’t win the initial ball on goal kicks and punts and when we did, we couldn’t keep it long enough so our front three couldn’t hold it for us to get the lineup a little higher and hopefully possess a little bit higher up the field.

“And then when we try to play, they were just pressing us all over the place and so that made it very difficult for us to play in the back and to really get into our scheme…. Better teams dictate the play. And that’s what they were doing on Friday.

“So I think we were a little bit better in the first half. We did run out of a little bit of steam at the same time. We played those three matches in six days the week before.

“And then getting to train on the turf all week, and actually Ferris had about the exact amount of time on our turf as we did. I’m pretty happy with what we were able to get out of Friday, even getting zero shots in the second half.”

In Sunday’s win, Sandoval said although his team came out on top, it was annoying that it only managed one goal against an opponent they kept under control.

“Nothing really changed,” he said. “We scouted before and we took a look at Northwood and what we wanted to do.

“And we’re getting to the point where we do have, as coaches, planned for adjustments and try to prepare for adjustments that we believe are going to be made by the opposition. But we’re getting to a place where, like I mentioned, we’re starting to dictate the play and so even if the opposition does make an adjustment and we feel confident enough that we don’t have to change the way what we’re doing, because again, we are dictating the way that we’re playing in that game.

“The frustrating part was those shots and the shot margin is great statistics, it’s great, eye-popping, but 1-0 is the only one that matters and so that was a little bit frustrating that we couldn’t find the back of the net more times….

“It’s something we’re going to work on in training, something that we haven’t had a whole lot of, maybe we’ve even neglected a little bit in training because we were scoring so many goals before, and we were really focusing on keeping shutouts and whatnot.

“We didn’t change anything going against Northwood. We thought we had a pretty good idea of who they are and we definitely know who we are at this point and it was just a real lack of finding the back of the net.”

Things should get better for the ‘Cats offensively this weekend as they’ll host Purdue Northwest and Wisconsin-Parkside, two teams that are having less-than-stellar seasons with the Pride having only one victory and the Rangers being winless.

“I know Purdue Northwest and Parkside are, they’re toward the bottom of our conference right now. It’s a difficult year for anyone to really get a … team together and be successful. And I think Parkside and Purdue Northwest are finding that to be true, especially if you get shut down and you have those kinds of issues as well.

“So we’re definitely expecting a battle, but these are games that we definitely believe we should win…. That’s the expectation.

“I got a text message last night from one of our players saying if we get to six wins, it’ll be the most since 2015. And that would be great. And she said something along that lines of ‘100 percent, we can do this’ and I was like ‘100 percent expected.’

“There’s no way that we should drop two matches or not win both matches Friday and Sunday. In the way the GLIAC is pointing out the points system and the standings, it should give us, if we do those things, we should be in the driver’s seat to finish second (or) third in conference depending on how the results stand up.”

A top-four finish should give the Wildcats a first-round home game to open the GLIAC Tournament on Tuesday, April 27.

Friday’s match with PNW is at 1 p.m. and Sunday’s with Parkside is at 4 p.m., both in the Superior Dome.

Ryan Stieg can be reached at 906-228-2500, ext. 252. His email address is rstieg@miningjournal.net.