DeKALB – NIU baseball’s offense stalled out as the Huskies were shutout against the Central Michigan University Chippewas 7-0.

The Huskies could not amass any runs in Friday’s daytime matchup against CMU, picking up just two hits throughout the game. 

NIU got its first hit in the first inning on a double by junior infielder Andre Demetral. Junior infielder Eric Erato had the only other hit for the Huskies – an eighth inning single. 

“We just have to believe in our approach,” NIU head coach Mike Kunigonis said. “We knew coming into this game that these guys are going to be 75-85 percent fastballs away. We just didn’t commit to the fastballs away and if we get back to doing that, we’ll be fine.”

Junior pitcher Dominic Hann started the game for the Huskies, going four innings and giving up two runs on six hits while striking out two batters and also picking up the loss.

Sophomore pitcher Mason Ruh entered the game in relief of Hann and took control of the game. Ruh pounded the strike zone right away, striking out three of the first five hitters he faced. 

Ruh’s final statline included five innings pitched, eight strikeouts and eight hits while giving up five earned runs. 

“I wouldn’t say he (Ruh) was shaky at all, Kunigonis said. “They (Central Michigan) had two bloop hits because we couldn’t catch pop-ups and that ended up leading to runs.If we play defense, it’s probably a one run game today.”

CMU scored its first runs of the game in the first two innings, but were held scoreless until the eighth inning. The Chippewa offense came alive in the final two innings, scoring five runs in the eighth and ninth.

The ninth inning was shaky for the Huskies, as their defense allowed two pop-ups to drop on the infield. As a result, the Chippewas scored three runs in the inning to make the score 7-0.

UP NEXT

The Huskies are back in action at 1 p.m. Saturday at Ralph McKenzie Field, taking on the Chippewas for the second game of a three-game set. Live stats will be available via SIDEARM Stats.