DeKALB — The NIU women’s soccer team was defeated by the University of Wisconsin-Madison Monday, suffering their second straight loss to one of the top women’s soccer programs in the country.

Wisconsin received 14 votes to be one of the top-25 teams in the country, according to the NCAA. The Badgers entered Monday’s game with a 5-1-2 overall record and a three-game winning streak.

The Huskies were the clear underdog, but still played a competitive match against Wisconsin. NIU was able to keep the Badgers scoreless for the first half as freshman goalkeeper Deighton Wamer recorded three saves on six shots faced.

“We spoke a lot about defending because we knew that would be the main action of today’s game,” head coach Michael O’Neill said. “The girls worked hard. We had to play like there were 12 or 13 players out there with the (amount of) ground covered.”

The defensive intensity carried NIU through the second half, keeping the game scoreless until the 64th minute. Wisconsin’s senior midfielder Emma Jaskaniec scored the first goal of the game. In the span of 11 minutes after the first goal, the Huskies conceded two more goals. Even after allowing three goals, the team kept their heads and stayed positive throughout.

“They’re a really talented team with a lot of talented forwards,” fifth year senior defender Kylee Hermeyer said. “When the breakdowns happened, I thought it was a good thing that we played an opponent like this because we’re able to see things that we need to work on.”

The offense was stagnant again as well. NIU only managed to take two shots total, both coming after the 85th minute from junior midfielder Madison Frazer and junior forward Reegan Kingpavong.

“I think they just shut us down early on,” junior midfielder Abby Zipse said. “It was also part of us being frantic when we got the ball, we didn’t realize how much time or space we had when we had it.”

NIU will play its next match at Chicago State University at 1 p.m. on Sunday.