DeKALB – NIU baseball (7-11, 1-6 MAC) dropped its sixth straight contest after losing its ninth inning lead in a 7-6 loss to Central Michigan University (7-15, 3-1 MAC).
The Huskies entered the ninth inning leading Central Michigan 6-4 and redshirt junior pitcher Mason Ruh recorded the first two outs of the inning easily before walking the bases loaded with two outs.
With two outs and the bases loaded, junior catcher Logan Gregorio, who got the start in left field today, dropped the game-sealing fly ball, allowing all three Chippewa baserunners to score and give CMU a 7-6 lead.
“At the end of the day, we had a 6-4 lead in the ninth with two outs, nobody on,” said NIU baseball head coach Ryan Copeland. “Before the dropped fly ball, we had three free passes, it should have never even got to that point, but it just feels like we’re just in a rut right now.”
Redshirt junior pitcher Adam Brouwer got the start for the Huskies on Friday.
Brouwer entered the game with a 4.10 ERA; after his start Friday he now sits at sixth in the MAC in ERA at 3.62. The Illinois Springfield University transfer also sits atop the MAC in strikeouts with 39.
“I actually didn’t think (Adam) Brouwer was that sharp today,” Copeland said. “I thought the command of his fastball was not very good. I think his spin was very average, he did a good job competing, though.”
Brouwer’s statline for the game included 6 innings pitched, 1 earned run, 3 total runs, 6 hits and 4 strikeouts.
“We had two double plays on the infield, that’s massive,” Brouwer said. “They gave us a couple free outs too which is really good. When you don;t have your best stuff, that stuff becomes really important.”
Clutch hitting evaded the Huskies the entire game, as NIU left 16 runners stranded, including leaving the bases loaded in four different innings.
The Huskies were also unable to collect a single extra-base hit during the game, with all 10 of NIU’s hits only going for one base.
“It absolutely kills you,” Copeland said. “I mentioned it to the team after the game, we had a lot of opportunities to put up more than six runs, with a really tough day to hit, somebody other than Gavin Baldwin has to come up and get a big hit.”
Both the Huskies and the Chippewas played sloppy games in the field, as the two teams combined to commit six errors, with CMU committing four and NIU committing two.
Sophomore pitcher Danny Cihocki was the first pitcher to come out of the bullpen, working 2 innings, giving up 1 run and striking out 2 batters.
Gregorio had solid offensive production for the Huskies in the loss, going 2/4 at the plate with a walk, scoring 2 runs and driving in one.
Senior outfielder Gavin Baldwin had multiple hits and multiple RBIs in the game. Baldwin finished the game 2/5 with a walk and 2 RBIs, improving to 24 RBIs on the season, good for fifth in the MAC.
Senior infielder Andrew Smart was the only other Huskie to finish the game with multiple hits, going 2/6 at the plate with 2 RBIs.
The Huskies will return to action at 11 a.m. Saturday at Ralph McKenzie Field at Walt and Janice Owens Park for Game 1 of a doubleheader against the Chippewas. Live stats will be available via SIDEARM Stats and the game will be streamed on NIU All-Access.
