With a two-man advantage and 15 minutes left in the game, the NIU men’s soccer team failed to cash in.

In their last exhibition game of this season, the Huskies tied Marquette 0-0, finishing 1-1-1 in their exhibition schedule.

“Being up two men was something we were strong with last year,” NIU coach Steve Simmons said. “We haven’t found the venom in that yet.”

Marquette’s Mike Carlson earned back to back yellow cards on opposite ends of the field in which the Golden Eagles could not replace him. Then Dan Addis received a red card with 13:51 remaining in the game to give NIU the two-man advantage.

“I was frustrated the ref used the red card,” Marquette coach Steve Adlard said. “But we did well, our boys dug in and I thought we got something out of it.”

In the first half, the third year coach started a young core of players and believed they captured the feel for the college game by the end of the first period, Simmons said.

“The effort was there today,” Simmons said. “It just presented us with something we haven’t been able to solve yet.”

The second half displayed a line-up that Simmons will pick from for Friday’s first regular season contest at St. Francis.

However, the coach was disturbed that the team wasn’t able to take advantage of its opportunity in the second half when they were one man up with 35 minutes left.

But junior goalkeeper Steve Goletz believes this next week will be enough time to get things in order.

“We’re seeing our progress and that’s good,” Goletz said.

Goletz had to make a one-on-one save with just over 20 minutes left, and earned praise from the opposition.

“He bailed the team out when all was lost,” Adlard said. “Rebounds, hitting the post, I think he did some great things.”

Freshman Joe Zimka and junior Matt Corcoran took time in net before Goletz came in to close out the game.

Simmons said the obvious highlight was the goalkeepers getting a collective shutout, but overall he believes the team has a lot to learn in responding to last year’s 12-7 finish.

“We got enough to perform on the field,” Simmons said. “We have enough returning players to get a lot of things started. We’re punching holes in things and now we’re going to take it to the drawing board and go from there.”

NIU will begin its season with another road game on September 4 at Western Kentucky before hosting its first home game on September 9 against directional foe Western Illinois.

“We need to relax,” Goletz said. “We just need to fix the mistakes.”