In a game that featured the top two defenses in the Mid-American Conference, the University of Toledo Rockets scored the game’s lone touchdown to earn a 13-6 win over the Northern Illinois University Huskies Saturday at Huskie Stadium.

“I thought we played extremely hard, I thought it was an evenly matched football game,” said NIU head coach Thomas Hammock. “Our defense played lights out. To hold a team to 13 points, they gave us a chance to win, we just didn’t score enough on offense to get it done. It was a tough football game both ways and they made one more play than we did.”

That play – a 52-yard touchdown pass from quarterback John Richter to Jerjuan Newton at 8:08 of the second quarter – gave the Rockets a 7-3 lead.

NIU (4-3, 1-2 MAC) led 3-0 on Kanon Woodill’s 36-yard field goal on the opening drive of the game. The Huskies traveled 56 yards in nine plays behind redshirt freshman Josh Holst, who made his first career start with starter Ethan Hampton sidelined. Holst opened the game by hitting receiver Cam Thompson for 24 yards and finished 22-of 46 for 210 yards, while Thompson led NIU with five catches for 80 yards.

The Huskies gained 391 yards on 92 plays in the game but never got closer to the end zone than the Toledo 19. NIU was 4-of-19 on third down conversions and 2-of-8 on fourth down with three failed fourth down tries in the fourth quarter.

On the first play of the second quarter, the Huskie defense made a fourth down stop at the NIU 27. From there, NIU drove to the Toledo 36 where Holst got free down the right sideline and appeared to score on a 36-yard run, but a holding call nullified the play and the Huskies turned the ball back over to UT at the Toledo 39 after a fourth down incompletion. Toledo scored two plays later.

The NIU defense held the Toledo offense to a pair of field goals on four trips inside the Huskie 20, not including the long touchdown.  The Huskies stopped the Rockets on fourth-and-one from the NIU 5 with 4:29 to play in the first quarter with Jalonnie Williams making the tackle.

Woodill made a 37-yard field goal on the last play of the first half to trim the Rockets’ lead to one, 7-6, at the break. The field goal capped a nine-play, 60-yard drive that started with 1:16 left in the half. Holst hit Trayvon Rudolph on back-to-back pass plays for 18 yards and was three-for-three passing on the drive while Gavin Williams accounted for 15 yards on a pair of carries.

The Huskie defense forced Toledo punts on its first two possessions of the third quarter before the Rockets drove from their 8 to the NIU 4. Richter’s third down pass on third and two was incomplete and Dylan Cunanan’s 22-yard field goal gave UT a 10-6 lead with 2:25 on the clock.

The Rockets (5-2, 2-1 MAC) extended the lead to 13-6 on their next drive after a Huskie punt. UT went from its 35 to the NIU nine-yard line where Cunanan’s 27-yard field goal was good.

“They made the long touchdown pass, we got called for holding on our touchdown and that was the difference in the ball game,” Hammock said. “We didn’t have enough explosive plays. We had 92 plays but not very many explosives. We have to find better opportunities in the red zone and better opportunities in situational football – third down and fourth down specifically. We have to continue to work on those things.”

Williams gained 78 yards on 16 carries and Antario Brown totaled 53 yards on 13 carries as he returned after missing the Bowling Green game. Trayvon Rudolph, who missed the last two games due to injury, caught five passes for 45 yards.

The 19 total points scored were the fewest total points scored in a game between the teams – who have played every year since 1997 – since 1998, a 16-3 Toledo win.

Next Saturday, the Huskies take on Ball State in Muncie, Indiana for the Bronze Stalk Trophy. Kickoff is set for 2:30 p.m. at Scheuerman Stadium.  NIU returns to Huskie Stadium on Wednesday, November 13 for a MACtion contest versus Akron.