On a day when the Grand Valley State women's soccer team turned in a championship effort, especially on defense, several near misses forced it to settle for a scoreless tie at Michigan Tech. The No. 10 Lakers tallied 25 shots, putting 11 on target, but were unable to drive home a game-winning goal in 110 minutes of action.

"We had two really good chances in both overtimes to win the game and didn't," said head coach Jeff Hosler. "We had a championship effort today, wanted it desperately, played extremely hard, had emotion from every player, but failed in our offensive execution."

"I'm disappointed we didn't capitalize on some simple scoring chances."

Even though senior goalkeeper Andrea Strauss had to make seven saves Sunday (Oct. 26), GVSU's back line continued to take significant strides forward.

Three of the club's four starting defenders played the entire match, while sophomore Clare Carlson came out for just six minutes. Redshirt senior Kaely Schlosser, who took an elbow to the eyebrow, leaving her cut and bloody, played an entire match for the seventh time this season. In just her second career start, redshirt freshman Alexis Mencotti proved once again she was up to the challenge of starting alongside senior Juane Odendaal and the aforementioned defenders.

The unit's magnificent performance allowed the Lakers to take something positive from a disappointing result.

"The girls made a clear effort to do things we specifically asked them to do (this weekend)," said Hosler. "(Alexis), to play every minute this weekend, I'm so impressed with her ability to be physically ready. She didn't see a whole lot of minutes until this weekend, but that is a testament to her mental fortitude, putting in the work and being ready when your name is called. She rarely turned it over; when she did it was not in a dangerous area."

"Kaely is an absolute warrior. Today, she takes an elbow to the eyebrow and just wrapped it up, goes back out and plays again, winning balls in the air. I couldn't be more proud of them, and the (defensive) effort collectively as a team was really good."

Sophomore midfielder Marti Corby was the only other Laker to stay on the pitch all afternoon. The Ada, Michigan native tallied game highs with seven shots and four shots on goal. Senior forward Jenny Shaba posted five shots, putting three of them on target.

GVSU is now 14-2-1 overall and 9-1-1 in league play. The Lakers hold a half-game lead over Ohio Dominican, which is 8-1-1 with two games remaining next week, in the GLIAC standings. Next Saturday's (Nov. 1) clash with Walsh is the only match left on GVSU's 2014 regular season schedule.

 Kick off for the senior day matchup is scheduled for 2 p.m. at the GVSU Soccer Field.
 
Notes:
-This is the first time in the series GVSU and Michigan Tech played to a draw
-The Lakers now have a 114-26-8 all-time record, including 84 shutouts, during the month of October
-GVSU is 53-15-6 all-time in October matches played away from Allendale
-In the 16 road matches played in the Upper Peninsula, GVSU is 13-2-1 all-time
-Today was the first time since Sept. 6, 2013 the Lakers settled for a scoreless draw
-Michigan Tech becomes the first GLIAC club to hold GVSU to a scoreless tie since Saginaw Valley State accomplished the feat on Sep. 21, 2012