The Georgetown men’s soccer team travelled to Wisconsin on Saturday and tied 0-0 in double overtime against the Marquette Golden Eagles as adverse weather conditions stalled momentum for both sides.

Rain started to fall just moments before kickoff, and Head Coach Brian Wiese said the rain made the game much tougher.

“The forecast was fine. It was supposed to be a beautiful night,” Wiese said in an interview with The Hoya. “And then it started really raining. It wasn’t windy at all but it slickened up the field. So, it was really hard to play.”

The Hoyas (5-3-2, 1-1-1 Big East) controlled possession and dictated the tempo of the game early on. Junior forward Achara and sophomore forward Derek Dodson found space in Marquette’s (3-6-1, 1-1-1 Big East) defensive third but were unable to grab the opening goal.

The best opportunity of the half for Georgetown came when Achara ran into space down the left wing. Achara forced Marquette’s goalkeeper to come off his line and played a ball to senior midfielder Kyle Zajec, who fired a shot on net. Zajec’s shot was on target but was cleared by a Marquette defender at the last moment, keeping the game tied 0-0.

Late in the half, Marquette started to find their footing in the game and exerted more pressure on Georgetown’s defense, but the Hoyas defended and kept the game scoreless heading into the half.

Wiese praised the defensive effort from his team against a strong offensive opponent.

“There was a lot of potential for a bad defensive moment. And the guys handled that pretty well,” Wiese said. “Marquette is a group that has some really dangerous attacking players that if you don’t handle well will hurt you and I thought our guys did a pretty good job of that.”

The game changed early in the second half when Marquette freshman midfielder Alan Salmeron received a straight red card for a challenge in the 52nd minute.

Following the red card, Marquette adopted a more defensive shape while Georgetown began to control more possession. The Golden Eagles’ defense remained stout and limited the number of scoring chances for the Hoyas in the second half.

On the other side of the pitch, Georgetown’s defense dealt with Marquette’s quick counter attacks.

After a second half that featured very few scoring chances for either team, the game remained scoreless heading to overtime.

In the first overtime period, Zajec played a ball into the middle of the box off a corner kick. Senior defender Peter Schropp beat his marker, but his header went just wide of net.

Early in the second overtime period, senior defender Brendan McDonough found himself in a scoring opportunity. The Hoyas played a free kick to McDonough, who was standing free at the far post. McDonough got his header on target, but Marquette’s goalkeeper made the save.

Neither team generated any other scoring opportunities during the overtime period and the game ended 0-0 after two over times.

Wiese emphasized that the team is close to clicking offensively, and needs some bounces to go its way.

“We’re getting ourselves into dangerous positions and doing a lot of the things right. And other than that, the people we have are fully capable of scoring goals,” Wiese said. “Then maybe you need a little bit of luck or need a little bit of quality. I think that will come. I’m a believer that that’ll average out well for us.”

Georgetown finished with twelve shots to Marquette’s eleven. Freshman goalie Giannis Nikopolidis made three saves in net for the Hoyas and earned his fourth shutout of the season.

After the match, Wiese reflected on his outlook for Georgetown’s remaining Big East games and said that the Big East still remains wide open.

“There’s a lot to be done still. We’ve played three out of nine games and so it’s all still to be determined. The league is wonderfully balanced this year. So, I think there will be plenty of opportunities to make points up in there,” Wiese said.

Next up, the Georgetown Hoyas will travel to Indianapolis to face the Butler Bulldogs (2-6-2, 0-3-0 Big East) at 7 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 5.