Men’s soccer (7-5-1, 1-1-1 MAC) had its fifth overtime game this season in a match against Buffalo (6-5-4, 1-1-1 MAC) on Saturday which resulted in a 1-1 tie.

Freshman midfielder Kevin Rodriguez scored the Huskies’ only goal, and Daniel Cramarossa scored a tally for the Bulls. The Huskies came out attacking and pressuring both sides of the ball. They got to Buffalo’s backline in the 16th minute as Rodriguez took his defender one-on-one and scored to give NIU an early 1-0 lead.

Both teams had shots on goal early in the second period, but Buffalo prevailed, tying the game on Cramarossa’s goal. The Bulls’ leading goal scorer Russell Cicerone was credited with the assist.

“He’s [Cicerone] a good player,” said head coach Eric Luzzi. “We tried to pay attention to some personal matchups. We do have some very quick defensive guys. We made sure we were always aware of where he is and where he moves.”

NIU outshot Buffalo 14-11, while the Bulls had a slight edge in corner kicks with 4-3. The Huskies ended with one more foul than Buffalo.

Luzzi said he wanted his team members to win individual battles and connect on passes in tight spaces after a game against Loyola-Chicago last Wednesday.

“I just told the guys they did a very good job to kind of move the needle back in a very positive direction,” Luzzi said. “We talked for the last three days about, ‘you have to make plays, you have to connect passes, you have to win tackles,’ And I thought tonight our guys did a good job of making plays.”

The Huskies’ next game will be against Western Michigan at 7 p.m. Saturday at the NIU Soccer and Track & Field Complex. There are just two games remaining in the regular season.