Going winless in 16 tries would be enough to make anyone want to give up hope, but for NIU’s baseball squad, giving up is the last thing in mind.

Coming into this season, the players and fans alike knew it would be rough going. This was because the team consisted of 26 walk-ons, 16 of which were freshmen. This left little optimism for the fans.

But the Huskies refused to let the obvious get in the way of their goal. And although they have yet to register a victory, NIU keeps trying and hoping that one day its efforts will pay off.

After surrendering 74 runs and scoring only five in their first five contests, the Huskies have recently shown drastic improvements. The 110 fans who attended the first home game in eight years had a chance to see that improvement.

NIU recorded just 53 hits in its first 14 games of the year. That’s an average of just over three hits per game. In Monday’s two home losses to Chicago State (10-7, 8-5), the Huskies produced 21 hits and scored 12 runs.

Head coach Joe “Spanky” McFarland is pleased with the daily improvement shown by his club.

“Today was a positive sign,” said McFarland. “We got 21 hits today, and I think that’s more in two games than we’ve had the past couple weeks.

“The guys have the enthusiasm to win, and with that I think were headed in the right direction.”

McFarland also realizes that a brand new team is not going to make major marks early, especially a team consisting mostly of freshmen.

“We’re playing better than we started out,” McFarland explained, “but we’re still not good enough to make the mistakes we’re making. The guys need to realize that we can’t win with a large amount of errors.”