Wabash College and Denison University played to a 3-3 double overtime draw Tuesday evening in an important North Coast Athletic Conference men's soccer match.
 
Wabash entered the contest fourth in the NCAC standings with nine points in conference play, one point back of the Big Red in third with 10. The tie provides each with a single point with three NCAC matches remaining on the regular season schedule. The top four teams in the final regular season standings advance to the conference tournament.
 
The Little Giants generated two early scoring chances in the match Stojan Krsteski and Bayden Lee both fired headers that slipped by the goaltender, but each hit off the crossbar to keep the score tied at 0-0.
 
Denison (6-6-2, 3-1-2 NCAC) scored first when Max Gottesfeld scored in the in the 13th minute. Wabash maintained its offensive pressure, capitalizing to score six minutes later when Cory Sims knocked in his third goal of the season off a pass from Lee to make the score 1-1.
 
The teams played even through the first half before Wabash jumped out to a two-goal lead. The Little Giants used their quick transition attack to build a scoring chance in the 67th minute. Mike Gore found Francisco Trejo with a pass, who followed up with a pass to Krsteski for his sixth goal of the season. Six minutes later Krsteski struck again, collecting a ball from Jacques Boulais to add his seventh goal of the year and put the Little Giants in front 3-1.
 
The Big Red trimmed the lead to one goal in the 79th minute when Luis Zamora lifted a corner kick toward the Wabash goal and found David Jaben on the other end to provide Jaben his first goal of the season and move the score to 3-2.
 
Denison tied the match in regulation off a loose ball on another corner kick with less than two minutes remaining in regulation. The Big Red pulled their goalkeeper up into attacking position and battled for a loose ball just off the far post from the corner. Denison's Dan Milhollen drove a shot into the back of the net to the tie the game, 3-3.
 
Wabash managed one shot in the first overtime, while Denison put up one shot attempt in the first and two in the second overtime. The Big Red fired the only shot on goal the final extra session.
 
Chad Wunderlich finished with four saves for Wabash, while Jack Thomas made two saves for the Big Red. The Little Giants finished with 15 shots compared to 13 for Denison.
 
"I told the guys after the game it was the best 90 minutes of soccer we've played," Wabash head coach Chris Keller said. "We played fantastic. Maybe not 90 minutes but maybe 88 minutes. Denison got two goals on corner kicks. I take responsibility for those because we weren't ready for them.
 
"We dropped two points today. We could have come away with three points, but we did get one. We gave up a bad goal on a mistake early, but it really showed the character of our team to come right back and score a goal to tie the game, then score a couple of goals to take the lead. I was very proud of our play today."
 
Wabash (9-4-1, 3-2-1 NCAC) travels to Oberlin Saturday to play the Yeomen in a 1 p.m. contest before closing out the final week of the regular season at DePauw next Wednesday night prior to a home contest against the College of Wooster October 28.
 
"All three of those teams are all in the mix for one of the last spots in the tournament," Keller said. "It happens this way every year. We don't want to be watching other scores or have to rely on another team. We just want to take care of business. That begins Saturday. It's a big game. If we play as well as we did today and correct a few things, I think we can put ourselves in position to get a good result."