Simpson traveled to Wartburg on Oct. 1 and earned a hard-fought point in a 1-1 draw. The Storm played down a man for nearly 70 minutes.

Head coach Rick Isaacson said the game didn’t unfold as they had planned but that he was proud of his team for making the adjustments.

“We knew that Wartburg was a really good team, so we knew going into the game the significance of the match. They scored earlier and we responded when, unfortunately, about 20 minutes in, we took that red card,” he said. ”That’s the event that changed how the game was going to be played from our standpoint.”

“Our guys did a really nice job of implementing the changes we talked about at halftime,” Isaacson added. “Once we went down a man in the first half, the primary objective became let’s get to halftime at 1-1. Then once we got to halftime, can we create a game plan that would allow us to keep the game in balance for the next 45 minutes,” 

The Storm followed up the draw against Wartburg with a 6-0 home win against Buena Vista last Wednesday. 

“We want to continue to ride the momentum we’ve created during this unbeaten streak. We know what looms ahead is a tall task and we still have some of the better teams in our league remaining. We’re happy to be where we’re at but our toughest games still remain.” Isaacson said

The men couldn’t continue their streak, falling 3-1 to Loras last Saturday. The Storm are back on the road as they travel to Central on Tuesday and Luther on Saturday.

Senior Mateaus Lewis scored the goal in the draw at Wartburg. He said the Storm were still dominant despite playing down a man. “We went down off a free kick that was really the only chance we gave up in the first half. We were dominating and took one of our chances probably 25 minutes in. Sadly we took a red card and the guys still stuck it out.”

Lewis said he noticed the ball being played over his head and adjusted his movement for the goal. 

“The center back headed the ball down to my feet every time so I stopped contesting him on the header. I passed the first two to my teammates and the third one I decided to take myself. I let it go and it was a magical goal,” he said. 

The Storm having various goal scorers is something Lewis noticed from the team’s victory over Buena Vista. 

“We don’t have the same guys scoring goals every night. You don’t know who’s going to score, which is another great thing about our team.” he said.

The Storm will hope to continue their momentum this week.