Two Huskies played unexpectedly major roles along with Scott Owen in NIU’s 21-16 win over eighth-ranked Missouri Sunday at the Convocation Center.

The third-ranked Owen was having his way with the Tigers’ Cody Green, who was filling in for 11th-ranked Kenny Burleson, before Owen had his fourth pin of the season. The pin put the Huskies up by a 12-6 margin at intermission.

After the break, Mizzou had three ranked wrestlers in the last five matches going to the mat with NIU holding on to a 12-6 lead.

In the first match after the intermission, 165-pound sophomore Jeremy Benesh took on the sixth-ranked Tyron Woodley.

The match went back and forth and was forced to go into overtime. Overtime went by without anyone scoring any points, causing a sudden death overtime.

In the sudden death period, Benesh ended up not allowing Woodley to escape, thus allowing Benesh to pick up the 4-4 win in an important match.

“I knew that my match was going to be a key match,” Benesh said. “Coming back after the break, we needed to get on a roll again. You get a win like that, then everybody else gets picked up.”

Benesh’s decision put the Huskies up 15-6 with four matches left.

After Ben Heizer was pinned by the Tigers’ Scott Barker, NIU’s lead was cut in half at 18-12.

With two matches left in the meet, the Huskies were in danger of losing.

J.D. Oliva, NIU’s 197-pounder, was squaring off against Jeff Faust.

The match was slow-paced due to Faust not being aggressive in the match. Oliva was more aggressive than Faust and unable to take advantage of the many takedowns he couldn’t finish.

The third period ended with a 2-2 tie, forcing an overtime.

In the overtime, the action was typical, Oliva going forward and Faust going backward, causing the crowd to want the official to call a stalling on Faust. If you get two stalling calls, the opponent is awarded one point.

While the official failed to call the stall, Oliva took things into his own hands and had a takedown with 4.9 seconds left in the overtime to seal the NIU’s fate.

“It never even occurred to me,” said Oliva, about sealing the meet. “I thought we already had the meet won. I should have been paying more attention to the score I guess.”