NIU baseball’s (14-24, 4-14 MAC) seventh inning struggles against the University of Akron Zips (12-26, 6-15) were enough to concede the series in a 7-3 loss on Saturday.
“Extremely disappointing,” said NIU baseball head coach Ryan Copeland. “It’s a home series against a team we feel like we should be able to get a series against. Again, not good enough offensively, not good enough defensively and just overall a very frustrating weekend. We feel like we should have taken care of business.”
The Huskies struck first in the third inning, when senior outfielder Gavin Baldwin hit a long ball over the left field wall to put the Huskies up 2-0. After starting the season hot, this was Baldwin’s first home run since April 5 against the Ohio University Bobcats, moving him to fourth in the Mid-American Conference.
The Zips tied the game in the fifth inning, the only runs that NIU junior Max Vaisvila allowed in seven innings of work. Vaisvila’s seven-inning outing ties his longest start of the season, while allowing 7 hits and striking out five.
“He (Vaisvila) really settled in after getting a couple zeros there early,” Copeland said. “He’s really hard on himself and I think he just needs some confidence. Max is good enough to be a really good starting pitcher at this level. He deserved a win today and we unfortunately didn’t give him much support offensively.”
The game remained locked 2-2 until the eighth inning, when redshirt senior pitcher Zach Hise took over for Vaisvila. In 0.1 innings of work, Hise conceded 4 earned runs to give the Zips a 6-2 lead.
The Zips increased their lead in the top of the ninth, leaving the Huskies down 5 runs going into their last 3 outs.
After loading the base, junior catcher Logan Gregorio singled to bring home senior catcher Kaden Kosobucki for NIU’s third run of the day. Leaving the bases loaded, senior outfielder JP Gauthier struck out to end the game with a loss for the Huskies.
Gregorio, one of NIU’s hottest bats and the MAC leader in RBIs, ended the series with just 3 hits and 1 RBI.
“We got exposed this weekend when Logan (Gregorio) had a tough series,” Copeland said. “When Logan struggles and when Gavin (Baldwin) isn’t locked in like he was earlier in the season, we need other guys to step up. A lot of guys had opportunities to go find a way to help us win the game and they just didn’t get it done.”
Sophomore outfielder Charlie Parcell ended the day going 2/4 with a run scored, the only Huskies with multiple hits in the series finale.
UP NEXT
The Huskies will play the first of two midweek matchups against Valparaiso University at 3 p.m. Tuesday in Valparaiso, Indiana. The game will be available on ESPN+ and live stats will be updated on StatBroadcast.
“I think we all need to do a good job of looking internally, looking in the mirror and finding out what we need to be better about, and that includes myself and the coaching staff,” Copeland said. “It’s just really baffling to me how we look the way we do against Northwestern, all over the barrel, taking walks, having good at bats one through nine and then come home and have a series where you’re supposed to take care of business and we score 10 runs in three games. We’ve got to figure it out.”
