DEKALB, Ill. – The Northern Illinois University men's soccer team fell to Olivet Nazarene in an exhibition match, 2-1, on Friday afternoon inside the Chessick Practice Center. Freshman Christian Molina (Katy,Texas/Mayde Creek) tallied the goal for the Huskies in the 38th minute.

After moving indoors due to the threat of severe weather, the Huskies and Tigers played a 10-v-10 match on the much narrower than normal field inside the Chessick Center.

"This was a valuable exercise for our guys," said NIU head coach Eric Luzzi. "It is only the third day of preseason and it was great to get out here, play against someone else and see where we are at. There was plenty of good and quite a few things that we know we are going to have to focus on over the next week or two as we continue to prepare for the season, but this was a valuable exercise to get this done early in preseason."

Olivet Nazarene opened the scoring in the 23rd minute as Clay Selby took advantage of a miscommunication along the NIU backline to open the scoring.

The Huskies pulled back even 15 minutes later on a goal from Molina. A diagonal long ball from the backline found Molina near the edge of the box and the Huskie freshman made one cut inside and slotted home a shot to level the match, 1-1.

Just 12 minutes before the final whistle, Olivet Nazarene found the net for the second time to take a 2-1 advantage. After the first two shot attempts ping-ponged off bodies inside the Huskie 18-yard box, Matheus Guimaraes collected the ball for the Tigers 10 yards from goal and scored as Olivet Nazarene retook the lead.

NIU will continue its preseason on Tuesday, Aug. 16, when the Huskies face Wisconsin on the road in Madison. Game time against the Badgers is scheduled for 7 p.m.

Scoring Summary:
ONU - Clay Selby (23rd minute)
NIU - Christian Molina (38th minute)
ONU - Matheus Guimaraes (78th minute)