In the 87th minute, sophomore midfielder Angel Rodriguez converted a penalty kick that saved the NIU men’s soccer team (3-6-1, 0-2-1 MVC) from defeat against the Drake University Bulldogs (2-6-2, 1-2-1 MVC).
In the 1-1 draw, both the goal from Rodriguez for NIU and the goal from Drake graduate forward AJ Franklin were on penalty kicks. NIU freshman goalkeeper Atahan Arslan and Drake redshirt sophomore goalkeeper Quinn Millerd each recorded two saves and conceded one goal from a penalty kick.
In the 16th minute, Franklin scored off a penalty to the bottom right of the net. After that goal, Arslan recorded two saves and held the Bulldogs to just one goal.
“We couldn’t tie a single game this season,” Arslan said. “That sounds terrible for us because if we tied, like, three games, it would be much better for us for next season. In this game, it wasn’t that hard to come back mentally because we have been talking about this for weeks.”
Drake outshot NIU 10-7, with the Huskies having a 3-2 advantage for shots on goal. After a slow first half for NIU with only two shots, they were able to create five shot opportunities in the second half.
NIU men’s soccer head coach Ryan Swan explained the adjustments made during halftime to create more offensive opportunities.
“In the first half, we just never really got into their penalty area,” Swan said. “I think we were looking for too many passes or looking to create the perfect goal rather than just putting ourselves in dangerous positions. So, the focus in the second half was when we got into the final third, let’s really make it our emphasis to get into the penalty area, get some touches in there and make things happen.”
For the second straight game, Rodriguez was the lone goal scorer for the Huskies. Playing 27 minutes, his only shot was the goal to the bottom right of the net.
Rodriguez explained his mindset in that moment and the belief that the team had in him.
“My mindset is to make sure that I look at the goalie and see where he’s going to go before I shoot,” Rodriguez said. “He (Millerd) ended up diving to his right, so I shot to my right so that we went opposite ways. The guys had confidence in me, they let me take the penalty. We have a lot of penalty kickers – a lot of good ones, but they ended up letting me take the penalty, so the one thing I had on my mind was not to miss.”
Coach Swan elaborated on the work being done to achieve the win next weekend against MVC opponent Bradley University.
“I think if we’d approached this game with the effort we desired to get to goal throughout the 90 minutes, I think this could have been a very different result,” Swan said. “When we look at next week, we saw how effective we can be when we have that fire to get up in the dangerous areas. That will be the focus this week. The big thing will be the decision making and that desire to get to the goal quicker.” The Huskies are back at home next weekend at 7 p.m. Saturday at the NIU Soccer and Track & Field Complex against Bradley. The game will be streamed on NIU All-Access, and live stats will be provided by SideArm Stats.
