Men’s soccer (1-2-1) suffered its first defeats of the season in back-to-back matches this weekend.

The Huskies fell 4-1 to the Cal Poly Mustangs (3-1) in San Luis Obispo, Calif., and lost 1-0 to the Santa Clara Broncos (3-1) Sunday in Santa Clara, Calif.

Cal Poly

NIU’s first defeat of the season occurred against the Mustangs Friday.

Cal Poly “was very good at moving the ball, and we had to defend a lot of moving parts. Unfortunately, we were not at our best that day, but still not bad,” said coach Eric Luzzi.

Cal Poly took the lead in the 10th minute after Kip Colvey played a ball through to Justin Dhillon, who placed the ball inside the far post, putting the Huskies in a 1-0 hole.

At the 25-minute mark, Colvey was again able to provide an assist after crossing the ball from the right side, finding Kaba Alkebulan alone in the box. Alkebulan headed the ball from the air and beat junior goalkeeper Andrew Glaeser to double the Mustangs’ lead to 2-0.

Seventeen seconds later, Cal Poly made the score 3-0 as Chase Minter found Steve Palacios uncovered near the penalty spot. With a pass from the left side from Minter, Palacios found the back of the net.

In the 41st minute, senior Isaac Kannah found the back of the net for the 11th time in his career, but the Huskies were not able to make a comeback after being down 3-0 in the opening 25 minutes.

With about 30 seconds remaining, the Mustangs scored a fourth goal past Glaeser as Joseph Bolous fired a shot from 12 yards out to make it a final score of 4-1.

The Huskies had 10 opportunities to score but were unable to finish, recording three shots on goal.

Santa Clara

The second defeat for the Huskies came Sunday against the Broncos by the slimmest of margins, 1-0.

The Huskies were down a man in the 60th minute due to a red card. They had one shot all game with no shots on goal while the Broncos had 11 shots with five on goal.

Santa Clara “made no attempt to play soccer today. They just drove the ball forward pretty much every chance they got,” Luzzi said. “I don’t think it was a red card; I thought it was harsh, but I am not going to blame the referee for what happened.

“Being a man down definitely changed the game. We were very good in the first 10 minutes of the second half and then the red card [came] and left us with a man down for 35 minutes.

“The guys that played those last 35 minutes competed hard; they were warriors. They gave everything they had. Second game of the weekend, man down in the last 30 minutes is a tough task. Santa Clara got the goal they needed and it’s disappointing, but the red card definitely changed the game.”

The only shot of the game for the Huskies happened in the 47th minute, and it went wide after an effort from sophomore midfielder Albert Levett.

The match was a physical one with 27 fouls between the teams. Four yellow cards were given to the Broncos while the Huskies received one yellow card in addition to a red card, which was given to senior Jayson LeSeth in the 60th minute.

After many missed opportunities, the Broncos were able to take advantage of being a man and put one away in the 67th minute after Dylan Autran provided an assist for Max Ornstil, who was able to finish and put the Broncos ahead.

“We played two different games,” Luzzi said. “I didn’t think we were at our best in either game. We weren’t bad, but we weren’t at our best. It was a disappointing weekend for sure, but we just have to get back at it in training on Tuesday and prepare for a very good UIC team that’s probably going to be ranked in the top 25. We just need to work on generally being sharper and just getting the guy’s mind so that everyone can play to their potential.”