NIU baseball dropped its first game of the season to Nicholls State University by a score of 5-3.
The Huskies opened the 2025 season in Thibodaux, Louisiana, with redshirt junior pitcher Adam Brouwer toeing the rubber for the first time this season.
Brouwer was the ace of the pitching staff last season, leading the team in wins while also earning a spot on the All-MAC Second team.
The right hander gave NIU six strong innings of work, not allowing a run and only giving up four hits in his season debut while striking out six batters.
“I think when you look at last year, it was tough for us to go get a win on Friday nights,” said NIU baseball head coach Ryan Copeland. “It just felt like we were a little outmatched in the first game of the series. So, it’s a pretty easy decision for us to move him (Brouwer) into that Friday night spot.”
The Huskies offense was unable to give Brouwer much support, only scoring 1 run throughout his six innings on the mound.
In the eighth inning, Nicholls scored all five of their runs off the Huskies’ bullpen as redshirt senior pitcher Chad Saner and sophomore pitcher Danny Cihocki surrendered the Huskies lead.
“We probably deserve to win that,” Copeland said. “Nicholls is a really good program, and we couldn’t finish. We had some opportunities, made some pitches, and our bullpen has to be better and perform better.”
Saner totaled one inning of work in Friday’s game, walking three batters and giving up 2 runs. Cihocki only pitched two-thirds of an inning, surrendering 3 runs on 1 hit while walking two batters.
The Huskies allowed four free base runners in the eighth inning, three reached on walks and the other was a hit by pitch that drove in the game tying run.
“Adam (Brouwer) didn’t walk a guy all night and then our bullpen, a guy like Chad (Saner) that typically is a strike thrower, had a couple free passes,” Copeland said. “Throwing strikes is the name of the game, it always has been and it always will be and those guys in the bullpen, they have to be better, especially on a day where it felt like there wasn’t much offensively and we had done such a good job of keeping guys off base.”
Nicholls committed three errors in the game, giving the Huskies several opportunities to score but NIU was only able to capitalize once.
NIU also left 10 runners on base throughout the game, including the game tying run in the ninth inning.
The Huskies also only collected seven hits throughout the game, none of which went for extra bases.
“With our lineup and the new guys that we have in the program, we’re going to have to move some guys around these first few weeks and find a lineup that gives our program the best opportunity to win,” Copeland said. “I liked some of the at-bats the guys had but at the end of the day we left too many guys on base.”
Some notable offensive performances for the Huskies were by sophomore outfielder Charlie Parcell and senior outfielder C.J. Cepicky.
Parcell had two hits out of the leadoff spot, going 2-for-5 with a run scored. Cepicky also had two hits on the night, going 2-for-4 and scoring two runs.
Senior infielder Ryan Birr drove in the Huskies first run of the season and it was also his first RBI with the Huskies, driving in Cepicky on a ground out to first base.
The Huskies’ will continue their first series of the year against Nicholls at 2 p.m. Saturday in Thibodaux, Louisiana. Live stats are available on SIDEARM Stats.
