DETROIT – NIU’s Britt Davis laid face down on the field. Teammate Pat Raleigh shook his head.

They seemed to wonder, “Did that really just happen?”

It did. Freshman quarterback Dan Nicholson’s last-second desperation pass had just fallen harmlessly to the turf and the NIU football team had suffered a heartbreaking 31-30 loss to Akron in the MAC Championship game Thursday at Ford Field.

The Huskies led the Zips 30-24 in the final moments, but Akron quarterback Luke Getsy hit Domenik Hixon for a 36-yard touchdown with 17 seconds left. Just like that, NIU’s fourth-quarter lead was gone.

“We thought we had them down there a little bit, but they came back,” NIU coach Joe Novak said. “We just came up a little short.”

NIU came up short on a record-setting day by junior running back Garrett Wolfe. He ran for 271 yards on 42 carries, an NCAA conference championship game record. The game featured a multitude of momentum changes, as Akron went up 10-0 in the first quarter before NIU came back with 24 straight points.

After the game, NIU chose to look ahead instead of pondering the loss.

“We’re going to come back hungry and put this behind us,” said junior safety Dustin Utschig. “We’ll let it fuel our fire.”

When NIU linebacker Josh Brown intercepted a tipped Getsy pass with 2:10 left at NIU’s 22-yard line, the outcome looked to be decided.

But the Zips forced a three-and-out by the Huskies and engineered a 12-play, 64-yard drive to silence the NIU fans and keep the Huskies from playing in the Motor City Bowl.

“We were up, we were down, we were tied and we found a way to go 80 yards in 70 seconds,” said Akron coach JD Brookhart. “Obviously, it was a unbelievable finish.”

A 38-yard pass from NIU quarterback Dan Nicholson on a third-and-12 early in the second quarter provided the spark the Huskies needed to get back in the game. Wolfe carried five straight times after the pass, including a one-yard touchdown to put NIU on the board.

The Huskies rode the momentum all the way to a 24-10 lead after Nicholson found Sam Hurd for a 19-yard touchdown pass with 1:43 left in the third quarter.

“Me and the [offensive] line were having trouble getting the offense started,” senior center Brian Van Acker said. “Once we did after the second or third series, we were pretty unstoppable with the running game.”

Wolfe was the last Huskie to leave the field as the Zips celebrated the comeback win. Even the Zip fans cheered Wolfe as he made his way to the NIU locker room.

“We thought we had new life after the interception,” Wolfe said. “I told someone earlier that I thought it was destiny [for us to win], but obviously it wasn’t.”

NIU kicker Chris Nendick continued a strong season by making three-of-four field goals, including a MAC Championship game record 52-yarder.