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Downstate soccer opener: NMU men play road games 3 days apart to begin campaign

NMU men play road games 3 days apart to begin campaign

By Steve Brownlee 4 min read

MARQUETTE -- The men's soccer team at Northern Michigan University opens its season at 7 p.m. today to face former conference member Northwood in downstate Midland.

After that, the Wildcats head further south for Tiffin, Ohio, to play Tiffin at 2 p.m. Sunday.

Both games will be live streamed on FloCollege at flosports.link/4h8gILQ with a paid subscription, while fans can also follow along by visiting the NMU athletics website at nmuwildcats.com and looking under the men's soccer schedule for links to live video, live statistics and a preview.

Tonight's season opener for both teams might be a challenge for the host Timberwolves, who were 0-12-5 overall last year and at the bottom of the Great Midwest Athletic Conference at 0-11-3. But they earned one of their ties against NMU in 2025, a 0-0 deadlock early in the season in Marquette.

Tiffin is the preseason favorite in the same league, and is the No. 25-ranked team in the United Soccer Coaches NCAA Division II preseason rankings. The Dragons also won the G-MAC regular season title the last three years, adding its tourney championship last fall, and have made the Division II tourney the last three seasons.

"Both of (these games) are going to be tough," Northern head coach Alex Fatovic said in an NMU Sports Information news release previewing the weekend. "There are no easy games in Division II soccer. The parity is unbelievable; you can win or lose any game, so it's going to take a lot of effort and detail this weekend to get results.

"Both (matches) are going to be a challenge: Northwood has a new head coach; this is his first season, and it's a night game, so they're going to be up for it and trying to get a win for the new coach. They didn’t get a win ... last year, so they're hungry for a win, so we are going into a buzzsaw (to)night.

"Tiffin is a game we try to get as it's a fantastic game for us as a program to play elite programs.

"It's a really hard trip, and that's what this is all about and why we challenge them the way that we do: it's a 10-hour bus ride, two hard games, and in soccer you are right into games that matter for national tournament seeding later down the line." 

Northern went 9-5-6 overall and 6-4-2 a year ago in the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, but also made a run and, for the first time, won the GLIAC Tournament and earned an NCAA Division II tournament bid.

The Wildcats were chosen to finish third in the coaches' preseason poll that was released on Wednesday, the same place they finished at the end of the last regular season.

Most of the league teams were picked right where they finished last season, the exception being Wisconsin-Parkside and Davenport flip-flopping with Parkside picked fourth and Davenport fifth.

Otherwise, last year's regular season champ Saginaw Valley State was unanimous at the top and runner-up Roosevelt second. At the bottom, Purdue Northwest was picked to repeat in sixth, the same for St. Cloud State in seventh of the seven teams.

When Fatovic was asked about what he's liked during the preseason ahead of this trip, he noted his squad has good depth.

"We're like 20 (players) deep, (our coaching staff) feels like," the coach said. "We have 19 or 20 players who we feel we could put on the field at any time and do a job.

"Obviously, we have our top guys that are 90-minute guys, and then we have who we like to call our 'game changers.' These are guys who come off the bench and provide a different impact in different situations, and we feel really good about that."

Story contents based on a pair of Northern Michigan University Sports Information press release previewing the games and reviewing the GLIAC poll. Journal Sports Editor Steve Brownlee's email address is sbrownlee@miningjournal.net.

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