If it’s possible to neither pass nor fail a test, the NIU baseball team might qualify after Tuesday’s 10-5 loss to the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Prior to the scheduled doubleheader (only one game was played due to the soggy conditions at Wisconsin), NIU skipper Joe “Spanky” McFarland noted that the contest against the Big Ten Badgers would be a good test to see where his squad actually was, as the season winds down.

Going into the game, McFarland’s Huskies had won 10 of their previous 15 outings, but the rookie NIU coach was wary of the “Big Ten Dilemma.”

“When you face a Big Ten team, the players think they have to play better,” McFarland said. “So we went out there a little tentative and fell apart in tight situations.”

NIU (10-24) trailed by a run after the first inning, but tallied three of their own in the fourth. What’s amazing is that the Huskies did not have a hit in the inning.

The Huskies utilized walks and stolen bases to take the two-run lead—an aspect of their game that McFarland is pleased with.

“I think the guys are feeling confident in the running game,” McFarland said. “The running part is coming along fine, now we just have to get some hits to move them along.”

Up until this point, McFarland couldn’t have been happier with his gang. Then, the Huskies let the Badgers right back into the game with a couple of errors in the bottom half of the fourth.

Wisconsin tied the game in that fourth, went up by one in the fifth and put it away with six runs in the seventh and eighth innings.

Compared to the large margin of losses that the Huskies sustained to Big Ten squads earlier in the season, McFarland and Co. had reason to keep their heads up afterward.

“We played better than earlier in the year,” McFarland admitted. “We had them early in the game and let them back in it. All in all, it was nice to see that we can play with them.”