Brad Benson hung his head and his shoulders dropped as he stared at the field in disbelief of the Salukis’ loss to the University of Illinois Wednesday.

This is a good group of guys, Benson said. This is a group of guys who care. I think everybody is really upset. We had a couple of opportunities to win this game and we didn’t execute. You don’t execute, you don’t win.

We’re just going to have to pick ourselves up. It is not the end of the world, but obviously we are upset right now. We have to go in there and play tough and get on a roll again.

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SIUC lost to Illinois 7-5 in 12-innings Wednesday at Abe Martin Field. The game was a tune-up for the four-game weekend series against the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls, Iowa.

Northern Iowa lost four games at Indiana State University last weekend in their first Missouri Valley Conference matchup. The Panthers have an 0-4 record in the conference and are 9-11 overall.

But just because UNI has lost four games in the conference does not mean that the Panthers are not a threat to the Salukis.

They were a good team last year, Benson said. Any time you play a team at their place, you better be ready to play or they will clean your clock.

Last year, the Panthers were second in the conference, but the Panthers are hitting .282 as a team this spring and only have eight home runs on the season.

Senior Brian Kegler leads the Panthers with a .383 average. On the mound, senior Kevin Briggeman is pacing UNI with a 3-0 record and a solid 2.51 ERA in 32.1 innings pitched.

The Salukis have a little better hitting a .311 team average and 26 round trippers. Senior outfielder Joel Peters leads the Salukis with five homers and a .407 average.

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The 9-13 Salukis will be looking to extending their conference winning streak to five games for the season. Both teams dropped games Wednesday as Northern Iowa lost 12-5 to the University of Minnesota.

Saluki coach Dan Callahan said just because both teams have losses coming into the series does not mean that any ramifications will carry over to the weekend.

In this conference, if you win four games, you lose four games, it doesn’t mean crap, Callahan said. It doesn’t carry into next weekend good or bad. What we did this weekend carried to [Wednesday], we wouldn’t have choked like we did.

We would have come out and won that probably 4-2. Unfortunately in this sport, there is absolutely no carry over good or bad from one game to the next.

The Salukis take UNI Friday at 2 p.m. in Cedar Falls. Saturday the first of two begins at noon, and Sunday the game is at 1 p.m.

All games can be heard on WCIL 1020 AM or at http://www.siu.edu/~athletic.