Two touchdowns and a field goal wouldn’t have helped the NIU baseball team on Tuesday as the College of St. Francis racked up a decisive 18-0 victory at Huskie Diamond.

“I needed to put in the Prevent Defense,” NIU coach Joe “Spanky” McFarland said after the game. “Maybe I should give (NIU football) coach (Charlie) Sadler a call about the Prevent.”

All joking aside, NIU’s mounders suffered their second worst loss of the season (SIU-E beat the Huskies by three “TDs,” 21-0 on March 30) in front of 83 onlookers.

St. Francis (11-21-1) took advantage of 14 walks and three NIU errors to cruise to victory. NIU, on the other hand, muscled only three base-hits en route to its 21st loss of the year against three wins.

“Back to square one,” McFarland said. “We just couldn’t get it going and they did. And after that, it was over.”

One bright spot for the Huskies came in the form of 6-0, 172-pounder Brent Horlock. The sophomore southpaw took the hill with an 0-5 mark for the year, but pitched rather impressively until McFarland opted for some relief in the seventh inning.

“I thought Horlock pitched one heck of a game,” McFarland said. “We couldn’t get him any runs, and he ran out of juice there at the end—he deserved better.”

All Horlock has to show for his 6 and 1/3 outing, giving up just two earned runs, while striking out seven, is his sixth loss of the season.

While Horlock kept the Fighting Saints at bay early in the contest, the rest of the Huskies couldn’t muster didley at the plate. St. Francis hurler Cory Rogers coasted through seven innings, allowing just two dents. Both hits came in the second inning.

Zach Zavac, who made two spectacular catches in right field, lined a hit to right and second baseman Chris Mershon followed with a blooper to right that put two men on, with only one out.

The Fighting Saints spoiled any chance of a Huskie rally with an inning-ending 4-6-3 double play.

“We had some opportunities to score some runs early, but we didn’t do it,” McFarland admitted. “And after that, it was all she wrote. We didn’t have any opportunities later on.”

Despite the drubbing, St. Francis coach Gordie Gillespie, who is the winningest coach (1240-643 career mark) in all of college baseball, sent an optimistic message to the Huskies.

“I think Spanky McFarland is going to do an outstanding job here,” Gillespie said. “He’s one of the best coaches in America, and I think it was a great selection here by your selection committee.

“You’ve got to remember that when you give a program up, it’s just going to take a little bit of time.”

Gillespie predicted big things for the future of the program.

“The game got a little out of hand there at the end, but I like the way Spanky handles his team,” Gillespie continued. “They’re going to be a fine ball club, it just takes a while.”