In one of its final tune-ups before the MAC Tournament, the NIU men’s soccer team lost to Duke on Sunday by a count of 3-1.

Within the first two minutes of the game the Blue Devils posted their first goal when Cole Grossman beat Joe Zimka. Just a mere six minutes later, Duke went up 2-0 on another Grossman goal, with an assist by Mike Grella, his second of the game.

After going down early, the Huskies got a good look at the net but Finn Jor’s shot flew just over the crossbar and NIU went into halftime down 2-0.

“We outplayed them for the second half,” said NIU head coach Steve Simmons. “But you can’t put yourself at a deficit to an ACC team at their place.”

Five minutes into the second half it was Grossman again, only this time with the assist to Grella, to give the Blue Devils a 3-0 advantage.

Luis De La Cerda broke the shutout in the 75th minute with the only Huskie goal, as the team fell to 8-5-4 on the season with the loss.

“We were flat in the first 30 minutes and very, very energetic in the last 60 minutes,” Simmons said. “Unfortunately the first 30 minutes cost us.”

Despite the loss, NIU outshot the Blue Devils but Duke had eight shots on goal compared to six by the Huskies.

Simmons said the loss didn’t directly hurt the chances of NIU making the NCAA Tournament as an at-large. If the Huskies don’t earn an at-large bid they will have to win the MAC Tournament to make it.

“It didn’t help us but you’re looking at two teams in the top 30, top 40,” Simmons said. “It didn’t hurt us that bad.”

He also said they schedule games like Duke and Wisconsin to prepare for the type of play they will see in the MAC Tournament, which starts on Nov. 13 with the play-in game. Simmons said the games have a very small margin of error and the Huskies will have to close that margin to succeed in the tournament play.