NMU men exact revenge on No. 5 Cardinals, 2-1
Trending
UNIVERSITY CENTER -- The result was well worth the wait. And the wait wasn't even that long.
The men's soccer team at Northern Michigan University got a relatively quick rematch with nationally ranked Saginaw Valley State on Friday and made it pay off with a 2-1 victory at the Cardinals' field located between Saginaw and Bay City.
The Wildcats lost 4-1 to SVSU on the same field less than two weeks earlier on Sept. 6, but turned the tables to open Northern's season in the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference.
NMU now stands at 4-2 overall, while No. 5 Saginaw Valley is 3-1-2 and 1-1 in league play.
Interestingly, the Wildcats accomplished this feat without getting a goal from the nation's leading scorer, senior Luca Rosen, though the team captain did assist on the winning goal.
Instead, sophomore Sam Pilgrim and junior Ian Weimer scored for NMU, which will get one final match vs. the Cardinals to end the regular season in Marquette on Sunday, Oct. 25.
"A ton of credit to the guys," Northern head coach Alex Fatovic said in an NMU Sports Information news release detailing the game. "Unbelievable performance.
"We came down here 12 days ago and lost 4-1, and for the last two weeks they trained hard, they prepared, they understood the matchup, and you could see in the first 15 minutes that they were following the game plan and they were making the right decisions based on the matchup.
"So many quality performances. Tyler Kowalczyk played his best game ever for me, (along with) everyone in the back line -- Davian Gumbs, Marcos Gallardo Rozano, Noah Girard and James Carr.
"Ian Weimer played his best game and was rewarded with the game-winner. Everybody stepped up. It was such a win, and it's massive for us. Not only in the standings and the rankings, but for our confidence and the head-to-head tiebreaker against Saginaw at the end of the season. We're just really pleased with the effort."
Each of those backline players mentioned, along with goalkeeper Asaf Kristal, played the entire 90 minutes.
Fatovic also said it was quite a physical battle to hand SVSU its first loss, holding a team that bludgeoned Davenport to the tune of 6-0 on Wednesday.
Pilgrim opened the scoring in the 31st minute, striking a decisive right-footed free kick from near the touchline that curled around the near post, according to the NMU SI account, as he scored his second of the season.
"That's what Pilgrim has," Fatovic said. "We know that he's got set-piece magic ... and I think it was a well-deserved lead at half. We got some really good chances; I think we had some chances to go up 2-0 early in the second half. We had some breakaways, we had some chances, we had some 1-on-1s, but we didn't do it.
"Then we let them into the game. You give them a thousand services, eventually ... something's going to find the net, and they did that."
Nevertheless, NMU's lead held up for almost 50 minutes as SVSU didn't knot it 1-1 until 10:54 was remaining. That's when Gabo Vazquez hit the crossbar, then found the rebound in a mad scramble inside the box to punch it over the line and past Kristal, who finished with five saves.
Now with time starting to run out, Rosen came to the rescue. He made a quick throw-in after an out-of-bounds play to catch the Cardinals off guard. The throw found Weimer on the run, who volleyed a shot over an aggressive Saginaw netminder Nick Kay, who finished with three stops.
This one wasn't stopped as NMU took the lead with just 2:10 left.
Fatovic talked about Rosen's IQ and nose for the goal.
"I think it's an elite-level understanding of the game, especially from an attacking player," the Wildcats coach said. "He's always thinking about ways to get in behind and score goals, even if he's not the one shooting.
"We're out of bounds and I'm saying, 'Hey, let's slow it down. Let's be conservative. Let's not give anything away here.' And he's thinking, 'Well, let's go find a winner.' He and (Ian) have a great connection, and they were on the spot.
"Pure soccer IQ. There are some players that just wouldn't understand that moment, and he certainly did.... Full credit to (Luca). He can find so many different ways to influence the game, and (Friday), again, in a huge way."
After bursting on the scene as a major goal scorer along with Rosen during the second half of last season, Weimer notched his first goal of this season Friday after making three assists the previous weekend vs. Jamestown.
"(Ian's) No. 1 asset is always going to be his work rate and his pressing," Fatovic said. "He puts in hard work for the team, and that's why he's our starting forward.
"Maybe the goals haven't fallen for him the way they necessarily did last year, but that's the life of a forward, and you just keep going. He's resilient, he's got persistence, and he just kept going.
"You never know when you're going to find that moment, and he gets in there with a chance to win the game in the 88th minute, and he buries it. So, full credit to him. I'm super happy that he finally got his first goal of the season, and a winning goal, too."
The Wildcats were playing at Davenport on Sunday, then staying on the road for games at Roosevelt on Friday and St. Cloud State on Sunday.
They return home to play Purdue Northwest at 3 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 2.
Story contents based on a
A half-dozen Northern Michigan University men's soccer players celebrate during a game played against nationally ranked Saginaw Valley State at the Cardinals' field in University Center on Friday. From left are Sam Pilgrim, James Carr, Luca Rosen, Ian Weimer, Marcos Gallardo Rozano and Noah Girard. (Photo courtesy NMU)