Adversity is something NIU football has been through numerous times this season.

Adversity popped its head Tuesday night, but NIU persevered and defeated Ball State 4-38 on a 34 yard field goal by kicker Matt Sims with 11 seconds left in regulation.

“I was just happy I could help my team,” Sims said. “The whole team got me into position to do my job. That’s just what I have to do; I have to get it through the uprights.”

In a game where the Huskies (8-3, 6-1 MAC) all-black uniforms were offset by Ball State’s (6-5, 4-3 MAC) all-white uniforms, they didn’t look like themselves in the first half.

The Cardinals struck quickly with a touchdown on their first possession of the game followed by some key turnovers.

“To go down and score early, then make a couple turnovers on the defensive side was great to see,” said Ball State coach Pete Lembo. “It allowed us to hang in there early in the game.”

The Huskies had numerous opportunities to put points on the board, but were jolted with two turnovers in Cardinal territory. One of those turnovers was taken 92 yards to the house by Ball State defensive back Joshua Howard. That score put Ball State up 14-0 early and took the crowd out of the game.

“I’d like to give credit to Ball State’s defense,” said NIU quarterback Chandler Harnish. “We had to get away from our game plan a little bit. They had us in some tough situations.”

At the end of the first half, the Huskies out-gained the Cardinals 293 to 213, but trailed by two scores 24-14.

The bleeding continued near the beginning of the second half when Ball State converted on a fake punt and gained 68 yards.

“[The fake punt] was good execution by them,” NIU Coach Dave Doeren said. “Obviously, we needed to be more sound than we were right there. It was a good call by them.”

The fake punt put Ball State at the NIU two yard line, which was later taken into the end zone to make it a 31-14 lead with just over nine minutes remaining in the third.

The Huskies then found their rhythm on the offensive side of the ball, scoring the game’s next 21 points to take the lead for the first time with 14 minutes remaining in the game.

Ball State would strike back three minutes later with a seven yard rushing touchdown by running back Dwayne Donigan.

With just under two minutes remaining in the game, Harnish led NIU’s offense down the field and Sims nailed what would be the eventual game-winning field goal.

NIU center Scott Wedige was proud the way the team was able to fight through adversity and pull off the victory to remain in control of its own destiny toward going to the MAC Championship.

“We had over a hundred yards in penalties,” Wedige said. “We gave up two sacks; we never do that. But the perseverance of our team really showed through tonight.”

Despite having a shaky first half, Harnish was able to put up 181 yards and one score on the ground to go along with 338 yards through the air.

He also tacked on two touchdown passes which put him into sole possession of touchdown passes in NIU quarterback history over George Bork with 62.

Ball State quarterback Keith Wenning completed 23 passes on the evening for 245 yards and two touchdowns and kept his team in the game throughout. But Wenning’s big night through the air wasn’t enough to hand the Huskies their first loss in seven games.

“We put ourselves in a position to have a chance to win it,” Lembo said. “We dug deep and pulled out all the stops to make it happen and, in the end, [NIU was] able to make more plays down the stretch than we did.”