Northern Michigan University’s goalie Asaf Kristal, center, is able to keep the ball out of the net against Northwood's Oliver Jarvis, left front, during their college men’s soccer game played at the NMU Soccer Field in Marquette on Sept. 4. (Photo courtesy of Cara Kamps)

PAINESVILLE, Ohio — Ties don’t seem so awful if it means you remain undefeated.

That’s the position the men’s soccer team at Northern Michigan University finds itself in after playing to a 1-1 deadlock at Lake Erie on Sunday afternoon.

The Wildcats moved their record to 1-0-3, all in nonconference games, with the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference part of the schedule to start this week with a home game at the NMU Soccer Field against Wisconsin-Parkside at noon Friday.

On this longest road trip of the season that began in Romeoville, Illinois, with a scoreless draw against Lewis on Thursday, NMU took a 1-0 lead on Sunday before the 30-minute mark in the first half and held onto it until the game’s final four minutes.

That’s when the Storm, ranked eighth in this NCAA region, got the equalizer.

You could say the offenses were the model of efficiency — or that they just weren’t that good.

That’s because each team had just one shot on goal, meaning neither goalkeeper had a save.

NMU held a 7-4 advantage in total shots as the corner kicks were even 4-4. Northern took more fouls, 15-8, as each team was shown two yellow cards.

The Wildcats, who in the first half outshot Lake Erie 3-1 and took all three corner kicks, had the game’s earliest quality scoring opportunity seven minutes in. A ball delivered into the box was met by an unnamed Northern forward who got a header on it before it just missed the far post.

Minutes later, NMU had a corner kick from the same side, according to a game account from NMU Sports Information. With the ball landing in the box, the clearing shot by Lake Erie (0-0-4) instead found the foot of Jan Hoffman about 20 yards out as his boot just sailed over the crossbar.

Northern’s persistence finally paid off in the 29th minute with a goal that started with another corner kick. The boot was delivered to the box but cleared away. Then a Wildcat defender played the ball into the bottom left corner to Davian Gumbs, who directed it toward the touchline.

Gumbs swiftly stole the ball back on the line before making another defender miss on his run toward the post. The keeper came out to challenge, but Gumbs calmly slid the ball to Teun Van Gansewinkel, whose run was unmarked and had a wide-open net to score his second goal of the season.

A more subdued second half turned dark for the Wildcats in the late going. After only allowing the Storm two not-on-target shots for most of the time after intermission, Lake Erie knotted the score with 3:34 left.

Right in front of the NMU bench, the Storm’s Velijko Radovanovic played a big sweeping cross to the far post. Teammate Benjamin Lerida made his run and connected with the “wonder pass” to score the equalizer.

Van Gansewinkel led all players with three shots as Hoffmann had two and no other player on either side had more than one.

Story contents based on Northern Michigan University Sports Information press release reviewing the game. Journal Sports Editor Steve Brownlee’s email address is sbrownlee@miningjournal.net.