The NIU baseball team has a magic number … of sorts. After Thursday, it remains the same.

NIU’s magic number has been stuck on one since the beginning of the season. The number’s diminishment to zero, which will occur only after the Huskies win a game, won’t signify the winning of a conference championship. It will signify that the Huskies have finally won their first game of the year.

The Huskies’ first victory of the season will have to wait at least until Friday. The team lost both games in Thursday’s doubleheader at Bradley by the scores of 16-2 and 8-7. The Huskies’ record dropped to 0-11.

Before Thursday’s games, the Huskies hadn’t played a game in a week. That, said NIU head coach Joe “Spanky” McFarland, is what really defeated the Huskies, who could only tally three hits in the first game.

“We looked like we hadn’t played in a week,” he said. “When we came out, we were stale.”

Losing for the Huskies was starting pitcher Brent Horlock (0-3). Horlock pitched two innings, and gave up nine earned runs.

McFarland said Horlock didn’t pitch well because he had been prepared to start first on Tuesday, and then on Wednesday, only to have both games rained out. Because of those postponements, Horlock’s timing was thrown off, McFarland said.

“He hadn’t been able to work on the side,” McFarland said. “He wasn’t sharp.”

The second game was more indicative of the Huskies’ capabilities, McFarland said. After NIU’s starting pitcher Paul Schimbke gave up four runs in the first inning, the Huskies rebounded the following inning to score five runs off of the Braves.

“That was the first time we’ve batted around this year,” McFarland said. “That was encouraging. A lot of times, we give up two or three runs early, tighten up and let the game get out of hand. We’re starting to do things right.”

With the score tied at seven in the sixth inning, Bradley scored the final run of the game off losing pitcher Jim Gurney (0-1). A Bradley runner reached first on a single, was sacrificed to second and scored on a base hit.