Down a man, down a goal, down to the last shot — the Marshalltown boys’ soccer team fought for all it got.

In the end, the Bobcats were still reluctant to achieve a hard-earned draw.

The Bobcats saw their five-match winning streak halted, but it ended in a 4-4 tie against Ottumwa on Tuesday night at Leonard Cole Field.

Marshalltown (9-4-2) hasn’t lost in its last seven contests, going 5-0-2, but the goal for the home-field finale was nothing less than a win.

“We weren’t going to let them beat us on our last home game, so we had to give it everything we had,” said MHS senior midfielder Aaron Ordaz Zambrano. “Obviously I don’t take it as a loss, but it feels like one. I don’t want to say it does, but this one, it hurt.”

Fresh off a 1-1 draw with Class 3A No. 8 Des Moines Hoover a night earlier, Ottumwa (8-4-4) was far from the weary opponent the Bobcats thought they were going to face. In fact, the Bulldogs were on the attack from the opening whistle.

Marshalltown managed to break through first, however, when Ordaz Zambrano found space and the ball at his feet on a pass from Luis Monge Jr. less than two minutes into the match.

Ottumwa countered in the 11th minute on a goal by Andy Nael Remilien, and the back-and-forth battle was officially on.

The Bobcats regained the lead with 16:05 left to play in the half on a header by Uwezo Ferasi off a ball into the penalty area off the foot of Rafael Ortz.

The visiting Bulldogs countered, capitalizing on a penalty kick with 7:15 left in the half as Jonatan Villatoro tallied the tying goal past MHS goalkeeper Jonathan Nunez. Ottumwa added one more with 3:19 remaining on a shot by Ramon Hernandez, who split the Bobcat defense with a well-placed pass from Acheley Noncent.

Down 3-2 at the half, Marshalltown emerged from the intermission determined to get back into the match.

The Bobcats did just that, scoring less than five minutes into the half on a Rafael Ortiz header off a perfectly-placed cross from Monge.

Once again, Ottumwa took the lead back, as Noncent took a pass that the Bobcat defense misplayed and put it past Nunez for a 4-3 lead with 33:46 left in the match.

Having already lost sophomore defender Aidan Bell to injury, the Bobcats went a man down for the final 28:09 after his older brother Carter Bell was sent off with a red card.

“Aidan’s been playing rock-solid back there, and you notice that presence of Carter not being in the middle because he sweeps a lot and picks up a lot,” said MHS head coach Scott Johannes. “But we were a man down and everybody did pick it up. We’ve got to play with that mentality more often.”

And Marshalltown refused to relent, scoring the tying goal just more than four minutes later. Ordaz Zambrano stuffed a penalty kick past Ottumwa keeper Bounsay Khamphilanouvong with 23:44 remaining, awarded after Ferasi was hauled down in the box.

Despite playing a man down for the final 28 minutes, Marshalltown was the aggressor for the remainder. MHS outshot the Bulldogs 21-4 in the second half, but just couldn’t get enough of those shots on goal.

“I don’t know what our shot total was, but how many of them were inside the 6-yard-box?” Johannes posed. “Usually when you’re shooting like that, it’s going to turn and find its way into the back of the net, and that’s gonna have to happen on Thursday.

“We’ll take [the tie], but we definitely wanted to win. But being a man down and being a goal down for a while, we kept battling back. It would have been easy to hang our head. You’re not really ever happy with a tie, but it’s definitely better than a loss, even though it might feel the same.”

The hotly contested match finished with seven yellow cards and one red card, as well as 29 total fouls. Marshalltown outshot Ottumwa 35-11 for the match, but the Bobcats only got 14 of their shots on goal. Khamphilanouvong came up with 10 saves, and his defense stood in against some strong shots to defend their net as well.

“We came into this game thinking it was going to be easy, but it was the opposite,” said Ordaz Zambrano. “With a man down it made it even harder, so we had to put on that extra effort and I think we did that.

“We gave it everything we had.”

The Bobcats must do that again on Thursday when they travel to face 4A No. 9 Cedar Rapids Prairie.