Saturday’s NIU showcase dual meet against the Spartans of Michigan State (2-2) can be summed up best by the old expression close, but no cigar.

The Huskies (5-2) fell to the Spartans 25-9 in the home meet; however, the final score may be deceiving because NIU lost four matches by either one or two points.

To start the meet off junior Rob Jillard dropped a 7-5 match against Dan Osterman at 149 pounds. At 165 pounds, NIU redshirt junior Dan Burk was defeated by Nick Proctor, 3-1.

The Huskies got their first win of the afternoon when redshirt junior Matt Mougin defeated Jordan Wohlfert 5-3 at 174 pounds, making the score 9-3 in favor of the Spartans.

The theme of close losses would continue at 184 pounds, where freshman Bryan Loughlin dropped a tough 3-2 contest against John Rizqallah. At 125 pounds, sophomore Derek Elmore fell 1-0 to Brenan Lyon.

With so many close defeats, coach Ryan Ludwig said his team can’t always put itself in the early hole in matches, which is something the wrestlers did often on Saturday.

“Yeah, in some of the matches you can get off to a slow start,” Ludwig said. “We talk to our guys about going out and getting the first takedown. We gotta go out and execute that.”

Trailing 25-3, the Huskies managed to win the last two matches of the dual, making the final score 25-9.

Junior Nick Smith made his season debut a successful one, beating Brandon Fifield, 8-2, at 133 pounds. At 141 pounds, sophomore Tyler Argue finished the day with a 12-6 victory over Christian Olanowski.

“I just kept working really hard,” Smith said. “I mean, I didn’t really get anything the first minute or so of the match and I just kept really pushing the pace and that helped me out a lot.”

Despite the loss, Ludwig said there are some good things that can be taken away from Saturday’s dual meet against the Spartans.

“Well, I think although we didn’t win the dual, which was ultimately our goal, I think we learned a lot,” Ludwig said. “I think we actually made strides, we lost some very close competitive matches to some very tough national level opponents. So, I think all in all our young guys are getting better every time we compete and some of our older guys are closing in on things that they need to do to get on that podium in March.”