Foul weather and some wasteful finishing combined to deny the Wisconsin men's soccer team its first victory in four games against in-state rival Marquette Wednesday evening.
The match eventually ended 1-1 after at the McClimon Soccer Complex after a 30-minute delay due to inclement weather.
The score could have easily been different, but the Badgers' inability to convert several chances came back to haunt them once again.
It's a game where I think all of our guys walked away thinking maybe we let it slip away,"" head coach Jeff Rohrman said. ""We did a lot of good work going forward, and we just didn't reward ourselves for that good work in terms of putting the ball in the net.""
In the 10th minute, Wisconsin won a free kick on the left flank after sophomore forward Brandon Miller was knocked down by a Marquette defender.
From the resulting set piece, junior forward Victor Diaz floated a cross which senior midfielder Erik Ortega headed home at the near post to give the Badgers a 1-0 lead.
""I flicked it on; it hit the goal line and kind of went under the goalie's legs,"" Ortega said.
The goal spurred the Badgers on, and for the rest of the half it was all one-way traffic.
Miller nearly doubled the Badgers' lead in the 13th minute and sophomore midfielder Pablo Delgado also had a chance but could not convert.
""We had quite a few chances and we could have put a couple more in apart from the one we got,"" Miller said.
After an explosive first half, the Badgers emerged from the break looking strangely lackluster and lethargic.
""We struggled a bit,"" Ortega said of the Badgers' second-half performance. ""We went away from keeping the ball like we were doing in the first half and we tried to push too much.""
The weather did not help the Badgers either, who found themselves unable to play their usual fluid passing game when the rain intensified.
Marquette equalized in the 73rd minute courtesy of an opportunistic finish by sophomore forward Nick Kay after an uncharacteristic error by sophomore goalkeeper Alex Horwath.
That goal finally sparked the Badgers into life, and they began to attack desperately in search of a winner.
Senior forward Dirk Pearson came agonizingly close for the Badgers in the 76th minute. Ortega had cut in from the right to find Pearson unmarked in the box, but his fierce shot was brilliantly palmed away by Pyzdrowski.
The game lapsed into overtime, where it was delayed for 30 minutes due to heavy rain and lightning risk. After play resumed, UW could not untie the score.
