Wildcat men’s soccer looks for success in GLIAC tourney
Trending
MARQUETTE -- A win today may be mandatory, but another victory Sunday would guarantee the men's soccer team at Northern Michigan University getting into the NCAA Division II tournament.
The Wildcats travel to Saginaw Valley State's campus in University Center between Bay City and Saginaw for the final two rounds of the postseason tournament in the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference.
No. 2 seed NMU and No. 1 and event host SVSU drew byes as the top two seeds in the tourney. The other four qualifiers played in the first-round quarterfinals on Saturday. Each of those was decided by a 2-1 score, No. 3 Purdue Northwest defeating No. 6 Davenport and No. 5 Roosevelt downing No. 4 Wisconsin-Parkside.
In the No. 2 position, Northern drew the No. 3-No. 6 winner, Purdue NW, and faces the Lions at 2 p.m. today in the semifinals.
The host Cardinals face Roosevelt in the earlier semifinal game at 11 a.m.
Winners return to the SVSU field for the GLIAC championship game at 1 p.m. Sunday.
While winning the tourney would be nice in and of itself -- just ask these Wildcats, who accomplished that feat for the first time in program history in 2025 -- one win would be nice and two even nicer while trying to get into the NCAA tournament.
Northern, No. 25 in the nation, is also No. 4 in the NCAA Power Index in Super Region 3, which includes the GLIAC and three other Midwest conferences.
NMU Sports Information notes in its preview of the tourney that each conference gets an automatic bid into the NCAAs for its conference tourney winner, with another six at-large spots also available.
If NMU maintains its No. 4 position in the region, it should get a first-round bye and host a second-round NCAA tourney game in Marquette. If they fall even one spot, they in all likelihood end up on the road.
By the NCAA Power Index, SVSU is No. 2 in the region, with Purdue NW No. 7 and Roosevelt No. 12.
The Wildcats stand at 10-5-2 overall after a 7-3-2 GLIAC season, which amounted to 23 points in the GLIAC and second place to Saginaw Valley's 25 points based on a 7-1-4 league record. SVSU is also 9-1-6 overall.
Purdue NW was next in the conference after NMU, coming in at 10-5-2 overall and third in the league at 6-5-1, good for 19 points. The other survivor to the semis, Roosevelt, was fifth in the seven-league GLIAC at 4-4-4 in the conference and 7-4-6 overall.
Fans can live-stream today's and, if the Wildcats win, Sunday's action on FloCollege and find continued coverage at both nmuwildcats.com and the official NMU men’s soccer social media channels.
When asked about receiving a bye in the first round, head coach Alex Fatovic says it really didn't affect his team's preparation.
"This is the first time that we've had a bye ... so, I think we're just going to keep things the same," Fatovic said in the NMU SI release. "You know, not much has changed.... I think it's just making sure that we remind the guys what's got us here, right?
"And that's just hard work and focus and making sure that we understand the game plan and doing all the little things in our preparation that's got us to this point. So, we're not going to shy away from that."
The weather at SVSU looks to be similar to what's been going on in Marquette the last few days -- overcast, a good chance of rain, and temperatures in the 40s.
That actually sounds like a day in Miami Beach compared to what NMU and Purdue NW encountered in their conference tourney game a year ago. They played in Marquette in the first weekend of November, but they couldn't take the field until multiple inches of wet, soggy snow were shoveled off the NMU Soccer Field.
It was one of the defining moments of the entire Northern athletics school year, when a brigade of a hundred or so students and area residents took to the field with their shovels before the Wildcats prevailed 6-5 after eight rounds of penalty kicks and a pair of overtimes.
Story contents based on a
Northern Michigan University's James Carr leaps over Roosevelt's Matti Pickel, who made a slide tackle on the ball, during their GLIAC game played at the NMU Soccer Field in Marquette on Oct. 18. (Photo courtesy Cara Kamps)