DeKALB – NIU baseball (12-18, 3-9 MAC) earned its first Mid-American Conference series win of the year with a 17-7 mercy rule victory over Ohio University (8-22, 4-11 MAC).
“We bounced back in a big way,” said NIU baseball head coach Ryan Copeland. “It’s nice to get out in front early as opposed to playing catch-up like we did yesterday. Our offense picked us up.”
In its last two games, the NIU offense has put up a total of 33 runs on 29 hits. The Huskies outscored the Bobcats 38-24 in the three-game weekend set in DeKalb.
Every Huskie hitter drove in at least one run during the game, with three hitters driving in multiple. Junior catcher Logan Gregorio was the only Huskie in the starting lineup to not score a run in the game.
“I think they do a really good job of taking what the opposing pitchers give to them, not chasing, staying in the strike zone, and we feel like as an offense, if we make opposing pitching staff get us out inside the zone, it’s going to be really tough for them,” Copeland said.
Gregorio, senior catcher Kaden Kosobucki and freshman infielder Nolan Sandee all drove in multiple runs.
After driving in 4 runs in Sunday’s contest with the Bobcats, Gregorio now sits second in the MAC in RBIs with 44, one behind Ohio sophomore outfielder Ben Slanker.
The left-handed slugger finished the weekend going 6/17 with two home runs and 10 RBIs.
Sunday was Sandee’s first start since March 28 against Butler University where he was struck in the face with a pitch.
In his return to the starting lineup, Sandee delivered 5 RBIs to lead the team for the day, and went 2/3 with 2 walks and 2 runs scored.
Senior outfielder JP Gauthier continued his hot hitting in Sunday’s series finale against Ohio, going 1/3 with an RBI, a walk and 2 runs scored.
Gauthier has been one of NIU’s hottest bats over the past two weeks. Since March 22, Gauthier is riding a 12 game hitting streak in which he has raised his batting average from .222 to .353.
The Illinois State University transfer now sits at 11th in the MAC in batting average and has hit .413, has 13 runs batted in and 4 of his 5 homeruns on the year during his hitting streak.
“It’s a great pickup,” Copeland said. “When you don’t have to rely on those guys higher in the order as much as we have, it takes some pressure off of them and lets them just focus on having good at-bats and to be able to work through some things. When it’s only your 2-3-4 guys in the order producing, it just isn’t sustainable. So we want to be an offense that is deep one through nine and those guys at the bottom of the lineup did their job.”
The Huskies utilized four relief pitchers to close out its series win, with redshirt junior pitcher Mason Ruh starting the game, totaling 2.2 innings of work, allowing 4 runs on 3 hits and 3 walks.
Junior pitcher John Lyman was credited with the win in Sunday’s victory, as his statline included 1.1 innings pitched allowing no runs on 2 hits and 2 strikeouts.
Junior pitcher Gavin Micklinghoff finished the game, going 3 innings out of the bullpen without allowing a run on 2 hits and 1 walk.
The Huskies take on Eastern Illinois University at 2 p.m. Tuesday at Ralph McKinzie Field at Walt and Janice Owens Park. Live stats for the game will be available at SIDEARM Stats and the game will be live streamed via NIU All-Access.
