The current trend of the NIU wrestling team beating unranked opponents and losing to ranked opponents continued Wednesday as the Huskies fell to Missouri.

NIU (9-5) lost for the fifth time this season against a top-20 team. This time it was the fifth-ranked Tigers (11-2) who defeated the Huskies 31-7. It was NIU’s loss by the largest margin since Feb. 4, 2001, when it lost to Northern Iowa 31-10.

“We competed well; we wrestled hard,” NIU coach Dave Grant said. “Missouri is a good balanced team, and they don’t really have any slouches.”

Only two NIU wrestlers were able to record a win over the Tigers.

Second-ranked 184-pound Ben Heizer beat 14th-ranked Matt Pell by a 4-1 decision.

Sam Hiatt, the 12th-ranked 133-pounder, won by a major-decision (a win of 8-14 points) over Brett Watkins 14-5.

“Heizer and Hiatt wrestled really tough,” Grant said. “The other eight guys had a good effort and hustled. Missouri was really tough on top and we struggled with that.”