The NIU men’s soccer team’s offense tied its mark for most goals scored in a game this year, but the defense allowed four goals in a loss to the Akron Zips.

The stat that really hurt NIU was it allowed all four goals in the first 23 minutes of a 4-2 loss.

The Huskie defense has surrendered 15 goals in its current six-game losing streak that began three weeks ago against Bradley University.

“Three of their goals came off dead balls,” assistant coach Karsten Roy said. “We were sleeping defensively. It was like we didn’t want to win the ball.”

NIU (2-11-0, 0-2-0) was not overmatched against the Zips, who brought a 2-6-2 record into the game.

At the 40:58 mark of the first half, Akron’s Chris Gnandt scored one of his two goals of the game from 20 yards out on an assist from Will Kletzien.

Five minutes and 38 seconds later, Gnandt, recording his third point of the game, shot at Huskie goalkeeper Steve Goletz. Goletz blocked the attempted shot, but wasn’t able to stop a rebound shot from Kirk Harwat.

The onslaught continued when Akron knocked in its next two goals 1:32 apart beginning when Ross McKenzie redirected Pat Beattie’s boot toward the goal at the 19:29 mark.

Gnadt finished up the scoring for the Zips when he collected his second goal from 20 yards out. Each of Gnandt’s scores originated from free kick opportunities at the apex of the penalty area, with Will Kletzien tapping the ball at Gnandt.

Peter Agrimson finally put the Huskies on the board five minutes and 22 seconds later with an unassisted goal.

“We just didn’t play very smart soccer in the first half,” Roy said. “The guys tried hard, but they need to be smarter and make better passes and stay focused the whole 90 minutes.”

Rasih Pala scored his first goal in a Huskie uniform, heading Jon Davit’s corner kick at the 18:56 mark of the second half.

“We came out a lot better in the second half,” Roy said. “Rasih had a very nice ball going up for the header. We also had a couple of other chances with Eric O’Reilly hitting the crossbar and Jon Davit missing an open net. If we could have hit one of those, we’d have had them on their heels. We need to focus on our marking and play better defensively.”

The Huskies face a long road trip later this week as they travel to Buffalo for a Friday matchup.

NIU returns home to host Western Michigan on Sunday at noon.