It seems as if there’s more than flat lands in Iowa these days. And tennis is one thing NIU men’s tennis coach Charles Merzbacher knows exists.

This past weekend left the Huskies in a state of shock having suffered three straight shutouts. Drake University tallied the first of three 9-0 defeats on Friday in Des Moines, Iowa, before NIU moved on to Iowa City where the Cyclones of Iowa State and the University of Iowa were equally successful on Saturday and Sunday, respectively.

“Obviously, the bottom line doesn’t look good and we know we have work to do. Hopefully, this will serve as a great learning experience. We were very inconsistent in our play and although a few matches were three-set battles abd closer than the score might indicate, there’s no getting around the final scores. I can’t fault our effort, we kept on battling even in the last few games,” Merzbacher said. “We won a big victory over Southern Illinois last weekend as a team. This weekend, we lost as a team. Next weekend we’ll come back as a team.”

The weekend wipeout lowered the Huskies’ dual-meet ledger to 5-7 heading into next week’s journey to Ohio. NIU faces former Mid-American Conference rival Bowling Green State University in a Friday match in Merzbacher’s hometown of Findlay, Ohio. On Saturday, it’s on to Akron for a 1 p.m. showdown with AMCU foe Akron University. Then its back westward on Sunday for a noon meeting with former MAC foe Toledo.