Injuries continue to pile up for the NIU men’s soccer team and so do the number of games without a win.

The NIU Fall Invitational began this weekend with a double overtime 0-0 tie Saturday against Oneonta State. The tie against the Red Dragons (3-1-1) gave the Huskies (0-4-2) confidence going into their match-up against IUPUI (1-4-1) Sunday.

Up 3-0 at the end of the first half, NIU coach Steve Simmons elected to put his back-ups in at the beginning of the second half.

NIU was already without senior Matt Stukenberg when it lost forward Steve Polkowski five minutes into the game, after taking a kick to the shin.

Simmons figured the second half would be a good time to rest his starters, especially after NIU played 110 minutes of soccer on Saturday.

“Steve Polkowski goes down and it hurts us because he’s been our best performer in the last three games,” Simmons said.

Simmons’ decision backfired as IUPUI scored four goals in the second half to steal what could’ve been the Huskies’ first win of the season.

“I tried to get guys some valuable experience,” Simmons said. “At the end of the day, it’s my fault.”

After the Jaguars scored their second goal 22:20 into the second half, Simmons brought in an injured Jason Sullivan on defense and freshman Justin McGrane on offense. Forward Kevin Woerner had already come in on offense after the first goal.

“Just the entire team let down,” Stukenberg said. “We got excited to be up three goals and let our guard down in the second half.”

IUPUI beat NIU’s starters on two more occasions, streaking through the heart of the Huskies’ defense and scoring on junior goalkeeper Joe Carrero.

Carrero’s first career start and shut-out came against Oneonta State, but breakdowns in the defense and offense of NIU took away any chances of a second shut-out.

Freshman goalkeeper Matt Corcoran was late to practice Friday and was held out of this weekend’s games, leaving Carrero as the only other option in goal for the Huskies.