Northern Michigan University’s Isabela Cardoso, right, looks to pass the ball out of the Wildcats’ defensive zone with WIsconsin-Parkside’s Samantha Nickell defending during their GLIAC women's soccer game played at the NMU Soccer Field in Marquette on Sept. 27, 2019. (Photo courtesy Daryl T. Jarvinen)

MARQUETTE — The Northern Michigan University women’s soccer team is back home where it plans to stay for awhile.

The Wildcats split a pair of games last week against GLIAC powerhouses, getting a nice win over Saginaw Valley State on the road Thursday before falling at Ashland on Saturday. The Cardinals were the No. 4 team in the league’s preseason poll while the Eagles were No. 2. NMU was picked ninth of the 10 teams.

Now Northern (3-2) gets to close its regular season with a four-game homestand that begins at 3 p.m. today against Ferris State, the No. 3 preseason pick.

Looking back on its final regular-season road trip, Northern head coach Jon Sandoval said the results were “a little bittersweet.”

“If you would’ve told me on Monday of last week that we’d be playing three matches within a week and having six points out of those matches, I’d be pretty happy and I’d probably take that,” he said in a Monday Zoom interview. “Even with this road trip, if you had told me we’d be coming back with three points, I would’ve taken that too, but the mentality changes.

“Once you get those three points on that Thursday match and then you head into the Saturday match, there’s a sense of belief and then you start to play and all of a sudden, whoa, we can compete with these guys, we might be able to beat these guys.

“And then as you go on, the belief just grows and grows and then all of a sudden you think that you’re going to get away with a weekend of six points and then things don’t necessarily bounce your way.

“I think a couple routine plays really cost us (last) weekend and that’s what happens when you’re on the road. You’ve got to minimize mistakes, you got to take your chances and score (on) your opportunities to beat good teams.

“But overall, we’re pretty positive. If you look at our results from … 2019, 4-0 we lost to Saginaw, 5-0 we lost to Ashland. So a lot of positives to look forward to, especially with the remainder of our schedule.”

Not surprisingly, a key player in the win over Saginaw was midfielder Caroline Halonen, who scored twice including the game-winner. She also scored Northern’s only goal in the Ashland loss.

With Halonen scoring nearly half of the Wildcats goals this season — five of 11 with no other teammate having more than a single goal — Sandoval said that things are different for her this year and she doesn’t feel as much pressure as in the past.

“Caroline is, we call her kind of like a mustang,” he said. “So she’s a wild horse. She’s difficult to play in a system, she’s difficult to get to play any style. She’s wild and what we really try to do is make the game a little bit different for her this year and to let her know that she doesn’t have to do ‘ABC’ all the way to ‘Z’ anymore.

“She can do a couple different things and focus on being our individual that switches our point of attack and scores goals. I think she’s seeing less responsibility, which is opening up her ability to find the net more. She’s also saving a little bit of gas in her tank when she’s not having to do all those things that we mentioned.

“So she’s firing on all cylinders. She’s a great finisher. She does extra work after practice to get better at finishing and she’s on everybody’s scouting report. She’s got to be identified as the best player, or the second- or third-best player in the conference. Everyone knows her and oppositions cannot do what is necessary to contain her and that’s because if you focus too much on her, we have other weapons that will hurt you.

“And I think that’s something that we haven’t had in the past is that we’re utilizing those weapons.”

The Wildcats will definitely need to use every weapon at their disposal if they want to win against the undefeated Bulldogs, who have given up only one goal so far.

“They’re at the top of our conference,” Sandoval said of Ferris’ unblemished 5-0 record. “They’re very similar to us in a lot of ways. Like they do a lot of the dirty work, they challenge, they battle, they press hard. They do a lot of the stuff that makes college teams successful. They’ve struggled in the attacking third, where I think we are a little better than them in that area.

“I think it’s really going to be an even battle, but we have to minimize again our mistakes and we have to score our chances to beat a really good team. Like a really good defensive team like Ferris is, we have to be on the top of our game.

“And I think if you look back on the last five matches, four have been on the road. Three of those opponents have been in the top-four right now, three of those opponents were nationally ranked in 2019, two of them were in the top 10.

“And then if you look at the rest of our schedule, we are in a really good place where we can reach a lot of our goals that we kind of mapped out for us in 2021. Not to say that we, by any means, that we need to take lightly the Northwoods, the (Wisconsin) Parksides, the Purdue Northwests.

“We have to make sure that we take care of our wins at home and I think we’re all looking forward to getting back in the (Superior) Dome where we don’t have the outside factors like the wind. And it was colder downstate than it was in the (Upper Peninsula last) weekend, so it was a little bit different than what we’re used to.”

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