Just five minutes into the Michigan's men’s soccer match against No. 14 Drake on Friday night, the Wolverines looked to be on their way to an upset when senior forward Justin Meram buried the ball in the lower-left corner of the net.

But the strike was overturned on a controversial offsides call. Meram had jumped too quickly on the through pass from Fabio Pereira Villas Boas, officials said.

“Was that offsides?” Boas, a Sao Paulo, Brazil native, said after the game. “I don’t know. I think that was a goal, but whatever.”

Although the Wolverines were aggressive for the rest of the match — they outshot Drake 26-12 — they failed to execute in the box, losing a nail-biter, 1-0.

"(Drake) wins the one statistical category that counts — the scoring," Michigan coach Steve Burns said. "The game is about scoring goals, and you’ve got to give everything to score those goals.”

For a while, the Michigan attack continued to give all it had.

Just six minutes after the initial goal was called back, Boas drilled a good ball right off the top crossbar before Drake could clear it. In the next minute, Meram got a good look at the net from the top of the box but missed wide right. Another minute later, freshman forward Soony Saad headed the ball up to Meram, who broke free from two defenders before missing wide right again.

By the end of the first half, Michigan had six shots on goal, and Drake had just two.

“We have to forget about this game and move on,” Boas said. “I think that we had a really good match. We’ve played three matches so far, and this was probably the best one. We just didn’t score. We’ve just got to work on our finishes.”

Although Michigan continued to outshoot Drake in the second half, the Bulldogs started to find some seams in the Wolverine defense and were getting better looks at the net.

In the 65th minute, Drake finally pulled through when senior forward Kenan Malicevec controlled a rebound in the Michigan box and sunk it in the top right corner of the net before goalkeeper Chris Blais could recover.

It was a sour finish for a Wolverine defense that allowed just four shots on goal the whole game. And by the end of the match, Michigan had opportunities on 12 corner kicks and nine shots on goal.

With a game chock full of missed chances fresh in their minds, Burns and his crew will look to reverse their fortunes at the Seattle University Tournament next weekend.