The Northern Michigan University men's soccer team huddles up during a game earlier this season at the NMU Soccer Field in Marquette. Included are, across the front from left,, Erik Lotysz (24), Cole Walgren (7) and Jorge Uriarte (11). (Photo courtesy NMU)

By Journal Sports Staff

MARQUETTE — The Northern Michigan University men’s soccer team resides in fifth place with a pair of GLIAC games in Minnesota and Iowa this weekend against teams behind them in the standings.

The Wildcats are 3-6-4 overall and 2-4-3 in the GLIAC and will take on St. Cloud State (3-7-3, 2-6-1) at 7 p.m. EDT today and Upper Iowa (1-11-2, 0-8-1) at noon EDT Sunday.

NMU’s Tommaso Lami is fourth in the league with five goals and tied for third with 12 points.

St. Cloud’s Owen Worsdell has four goals as the Wildcats defeated the Huskies 3-0 at home on Sept. 11.

Upper Iowa’s Frider Blunck, Carson Cajuste and Yannis Sapim each have two goals as Northern also prevailed 4-2 in their previous meeting on Sept. 9.

Last weekend, the Wildcats tied Davenport 1-1 on Friday before falling 2-0 to Purdue Northwest on Sunday to finish their home schedule in the regular season.

Against Davenport, Lami tied the game in the 68th minute on a penalty kick after the Panthers’ Faheem Patel gave his team the lead exactly 12 minutes in.

Lami’s shot was set up after a DU player was called for tripping Lami in the box.

Playing in the cold and rain, the Wildcats had some quality looks late in an effort to win, but couldn’t net another goal.

“You can’t be anything but frustrated and disappointed not to win a game with that many clear chances, possession and territory,” NMU head coach Alex Fatovic said. “It certainly is still the story of the season right now. We again made things difficult off a second-chance set piece, but in classic Wildcat fashion we kept going and found that equalizer. In the long run, it’s a massive point and kept us within striking distance of the two teams ahead of us.”

Against Purdue NW, the Wildcats kept the game scoreless in the first half before the Pride broke through on goals by Pau Aran in the 55th minute and Arnas Miskinis in the 64th.

“Very disappointed in the result today and how the game went,” Fatovic said after that game. “I’m proud of the boys’ efforts as always, but today was just not our day.

“We wasted another promising start by allowing PNW to get a foothold in the match and from there, they took advantage of some good fortune. If we want to achieve anything this season, we must find a way to score our chances and stop giving away cheap goals.”

Despite not scoring, NMU held a 14-11 edge in total shots and 6-4 in shots on goal as Lami and Philipp Rimmler each had four shots and two on goal.

Fans can follow @NMU_msoccer and @NMU_Wildcats on Twitter for continued coverage throughout the week, and visit the NMU athletics website at nmuwildcats.com for live statistics and video from the matches.

Information compiled by Journal Sports Editor Steve Brownlee. His email address is sbrownlee@miningjournal.net.