DeKALB | One off day is all it takes.

The Huskies suffered their seventh loss of the season in their final regular season game 2-1 at the hands of Western Michigan.

“It was the first overall poor performance this season,” NIU head coach Eric Luzzi said.

The loss gives NIU the fourth seed in the MAC Tournament and sets up a rematch with No. 1 Akron next Friday in the semifinals.

This will be the fourth straight year that the two programs play each other in the MAC tournament with the Zips winning two of the three matches.

“We were hopeful that we were going to get to play them at some point over the weekend, so now we at least know we will,” Luzzi said.

NIU has given up two goals in a single match only three times this season, but for the sixth time this season the Huskies gave up the game winning goal in the 70th minute or later.

“We’ve looked at all the different possibilities for why,” Luzzi said. “It’s not because our guys aren’t fit, and it’s not any substitution patterns. You can’t argue with the statistics on it, but we’ve looked at the reasons why and nothing really jumps out at you.”

NIU (10-7-1, 3-3-0) started off the scoring in the 27th minute via a goal from sophomore midfielder Brad Horton who scored on an open net thanks to a chip by senior forward Ben Thomas.

Horton ripped six shots with three of them on goal while grabbing his team-leading sixth goal of the season.

At halftime, the box score read as if the Huskies were dominating, being up 16-3 in the shot column with a 6-3 shots on goal advantage, but it was far from reality.

“I realize what the stats were in the first half, but the combination of not having a lot of energy on the day and not being sharp even though we had a lot of shots in the first half were still not good,” Luzzi said.

WMU (6-8-1, 3-1-1) struck twice in the second half in the 64th and 74th minutes.
Junior midfielder Saeed Sulemana Baba and freshman forward Kai Mendes put together a winning effort with a goal a piece.

The team’s ultimate goal of making the NCAA tournament might come down to the MAC semifinal matchup, and Luzzi knows what has to be done to achieve that goal.

“I don’t know if our resume is good enough,” Luzzi said. “We have to beat Akron.”

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