UIC fought back from a one-goal deficit and left Ann Arbor with a 1-1 draw against Michigan in the exhibition opener Sunday afternoon.

"You go into every competition with the hope of winning.  We showed some good resilience when we went down 1-0, we fought and earned the game-tying goal," Sean Phillips said.  "The nice thing about the group is they played hard the last 10 minutes to try to get a second goal."

A scoreless first half saw the Flames put together a couple of chances, but ultimately nothing went on frame.  Andres Vasquez saved two Wolverine shots to keep the match scoreless at the break.

Michigan scored first after a turnover, and Sindri Vilhjalmsson, who played the second half in net, made an outstanding save later to keep the deficit at one.  Late in the match, Josiah Ash and Alwin Seitz created pressure, and after they won the ball, Seitz took a feed from Bukola Abdulwahab and scored on a shot low to the back post.

"When you're putting a new team together, you want to find out how we deal with adversity.  I thought the guys did well," Phillips continued.  "We wanted to work on being compact, communicating, and getting opportunities in transition, and we did all of those.  The goal was a good example of executing transition, pressing, and good clinical finishing.

"For the first go-round since April, with some new faces and guys who had been out with injuries, it was nice to see."

The Flames will play one more exhibition match this preseason.  The team will travel to Eastern Illinois on Saturday, August 21.