DeKalb — After a close-knit battle at home, the Huskies suffered their third consecutive loss to the University of Central Michigan Chippewas.

The Chippewas are a conference-leading 6-0 and are 14-3 overall.

“We’re not happy with the outcome,” Head Coach Lisa Carlsen said. “You don’t play the game at this level for moral victories, but that’s a really good [Central Michigan] team that we took to the wire.”

The Huskies started the game with a fast-paced tempo, resulting in a 56 percent shooting effort from the field, while making 50 percent of their shots from behind the 3-point line.

Central Michigan used its 6-foot-3-inch senior center Tinara Moore to dominate inside the paint.

Heading into the second quarter down by a score of 19-14, the Huskies bumped up their 3-point percentage to 63 percent.

Even though NIU had a good run offensively, the team went into the half without attempting a free throw.

Junior guards Mikayla Voigt and Courtney Woods led the way for the NIU offense with 10 points a piece.

The Chippewas entered the second half only committing three turnovers, adding 36 points in the paint, most of them coming from Moore.

“We knew that we couldn’t let her catch [the ball] deep like she was,” Carlsen said. “When she did get it, we wanted to try and make her more hesitant and not give her much room to work.”

Woods kept pushing the tempo, driving to the hoop and crashing the boards, which resulted in a total of 15 points and six rebounds by the end of the third quarter.

“This game we focused on Central Michigan, who has two really good rebounders,” Woods said. “We wanted to make sure that the guards were rebounding, and I just happened to be in the right place at the right time to grab those rebounds.”

Heading into the fourth quarter down by six points, the Huskies put the ball in Woods’ hands where she got NIU to within one point with under 10 seconds left in the game with a contested driving layup.

Chippewas junior guard Presley Hudson was fouled with five seconds remaining, knocking down her two free throws to put the lead back up by three.

After a desperation three by Woods and Voigt, the Huskies could not knock down the shot to send the game into overtime.

The Huskies will be back in action 1 p.m. Saturday against the Eastern Michigan Golden Eagles at the Convocation Center.