North Park's postseason hopes took a severe setback after Wednesday night's 1-1 tie against visiting Elmhurst College in the semifinals of the College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin postseason tournament.

By virtue of a 7-6 penalty kick shootout victory, the Bluejays advanced to the conference tournament championship game with Wheaton College, a 4-0 winner over Millikin, Saturday night at 7 p.m. while North Park patiently waits for a possible at-large bid to the NCAA Division III national tournament when the brackets are unveiled early next week.

The Vikings put themselves in position to possibly pull out the victory when they scored in the 70th minute. After Elmhurst took a 1-0 lead just before halftime, NP tallied the equalizer when Johan Gustafsson put away his first goal of the season on a shot from 20 yards out off an assist from Fredrik Greiff. Elmhurst eventually would walk out of the Holmgren Athletic Complex with the victory however when Brad Yardwood scored on EC's seventh penalty kick of the night after both teams played to an even decision after 20 minutes of golden-goal overtime.

Elmhurst seized control of the match 10 seconds before the half when Michael Delong played a through ball down the left end line from a Jeff Kading pass and put the ball in the bottom left corner of the net. The Bluejays, which had lost the regular season matchup to North Park a week prior by a 1-0 score, out-shot the Vikings 19-13 but North Park held the edge in the first overtime period by a 2-0 margin but unfortunately couldn't connect on a goal.

North Park moved its overall record to 13-5-1 while Elmhurst played to its fourth tie of the season.