Just another average day on the pitch.

This time, it was NIU men’s soccer that was playing average.

The Huskies’ 1-0 loss to No. 21 Northwestern Wednesday put another sour mark on their record against ranked opponents this season, which is now 0-2-1.

“When it comes down to it, you don’t play a team like Northwestern at your average level of performance and expect to get a result,” NIU head coach Eric Luzzi said. “I thought we had some key people that were not as sharp as they have been as of late, and you put enough of those key people together having not great days and that’s what you get.”

Energy was a key factor in the defeat as NIU (5-5-1, 0-1-0) was unable to bring it in the first minute of the second half and allowed the Wildcats to grab a quick score.

“I’ve been saying it all year,” Luzzi said. “If we don’t bring energy, we don’t have much. Over the course of the 90 minutes, our energy was average. It wasn’t awful, but it was average. For that 60 seconds, their energy out-matched ours.”

The Wildcats (6-1-3) took the ball to start the second half and moved down the field rapidly and gained a free kick just outside of the 18-yard box on the right side. Senior defender Mark Blades found junior forward Matt Eliason for his ninth goal of the season and the game winner.

The Huskies out-shot NU 15-11 with both teams getting six of their shots on target.

Another problem for NIU throughout the match was its ability to connect passes and not give away the ball in vulnerable situations.

“Completing passes and where we’re putting people in situations is just leading into turnovers--and when you under-hit passes and when you’re not sharp, a team like that is going to punish you for it,” Luzzi said.

NIU was also locked onto containing the Wildcats’ dangerous strikers and followed through despite the lone goal.

“It was very difficult,” NIU sophomore defender Franny Otira said. “They had really good movement up front, but I don’t think they gave us too many problems. Any problems that they gave us was because of problems we made for ourselves like not clearing it properly. Other than that, I felt we handled them well.”

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