Losing does not come easy to NIU soccer coach Willy Roy, and a 2-1 loss against Wisconsin-Milwaukee over the weekend was no exception for him.

The loss was not helped any by the ejection of a Huskie player in the second half which forced NIU to play one man short for the last 25 minutes of the game.

Team co-captain Jim Pisani received a red card after a pile-up on the field. A red card automatically means the player must leave the game. Usually, a yellow card will be issued first. However, in Pisani’s case he was ejected immediatley.

Coach Roy did not see any justification in the call and gave his own view of what happened.

“He didn’t do anything,” Roy said of Pisani. “Both players pushed themselves away from the pile and we get a red card, not a yellow, a red right away. Jim did nothing to deserve the red card.”

Roy went on to say the only time someone should get thrown out on a red card is if someone was punched or kicked with aggression, in this case neither exsisted.

Besides the red card, four other Huskies had yellow cards during the game which put NIU into a bad situation.

“The cards put us into a defensive position and it was just a little too hard to mount an offensive attack,” Roy said.

Despite the questionable red card and the other calls, the Huskies played a good game. Coach Roy felt his team played much better than the last two games.

“We played much more spirited,” Roy said. “We played better ball and I even experimented.”

The experiment involved putting freshman Frank Sparacino at the fullback position where Roy said Sparacino did a good job. Roy plans to have Sparacino in the starting line-up for the next game.

UW-M started the scoring about 17 minutes into the game with a six-yard header by Mark Biebel on the assist from Ted Kluth.

NIU tied it up at 1-1 in the second half. Willy Roy Jr. found Preben Halle open for a ten-yarder with 58:37 gone in the game.

With the Huskies playing a man short, Panther forward Peter Schweinert rebounded the ball off the post and kicked it in for an unassisted goal with 12 minutes left in the game.

The UW-M goal gave the Panthers the win, and increased their overall record to 4-5-0.

NIU saw its record drop to 3-5-0 overall, and its Big Central Soccer Conference record remain winless at 0-4-0 with losses to Drake, Marquette, SIU-E and UW-M.

The loss also gave UW-M their first conference win and possession of the John Lewang Memorial Cup for the fifth time in eight meetings. The series record between NIU and the Panthers stands in favor of UW-M at 7-6-1.

NIU will head into Chicago on Wednesday to battle the Blue Demons of Depaul at 4 p.m..