NIU baseball (15-24, 4-14 MAC) picked up its fourth midweek victory of the season with an 8-6 comeback victory over Valparaiso University (8-27, 3-12 MVC).
“We found a way to win a game when it felt pretty dire for most of it,” said NIU baseball head coach Ryan Copeland. “We were just looking for one guy to step up and get the ball rolling for us and Cooper (Cohn) had that big game-tying home run for us and we just kept going from there.”
The Huskies 6-run rally in the eighth inning helped spark the win on Tuesday, starting with sophomore catcher Cooper Cohn’s game tying two run home run.
NIU tacked on four more runs throughout the inning, with RBI hits coming from senior outfielders CJ Cepicky and JP Gauthier.
“We’ve been pretty good all year long,” Copeland said. “I think sometimes it’s tough to play as many games as we do and find the consistency we’re looking for. Once we got to the bullpen, they started giving lots of free passes and when we needed to find a barrel we did. CJ (Cepicky) had the big double and JP (Gauthier) found a way to get an extra run in too.”
The Huskies pitching staff utilized seven different pitchers out of the bullpen, with junior pitcher John Lyman getting the start.
Lyman went 2.2 innings to start the game, allowing 2 runs on 2 hits, striking out 3 batters and allowing 2 free passes.
Three Huskies put in scoreless outings on Tuesday, including junior pitcher Nick Bassi, who picked up the win.
Bassi’s win was his first in a Huskie uniform and he turned in a performance of 2 innings, allowing 2 hits and striking out 3 batters.
Junior pitcher Gavin Micklinghoff turned in a scoreless outing as well for the Huskies, retiring the only two batters he faced via the strikeout to earn his first save as a Huskie.
“We’re always trying to get guys to step up in these midweek games,” Copeland said. “We feel pretty good about where we’re at with these midweek games. And for us today John (Lyman) gave us a pretty good start. And then Nick Bassi was outstanding there in the middle to late part of the game, put up two zeroes and gave our offense a chance.”
The Huskies offense struggled early with their only run in the first six innings of play coming off a Valpo error. NIU also left 10 runners stranded in the game, with eight being stranded in the first six innings.
“I thought the two arms they (Valparaiso) threw at us early did a pretty good job. They mixed well and found a way to get us out, keep us off balance and I wasn’t very pleased with our effort offensively,” Copeland said.
Cohn delivered the big home run for the Huskies in the eighth inning to spark the rally and finished the day going 2/4 with 2 RBIs and a run scored.
“Cooper (Cohn) is a guy that came over with us when we got the job here two summers ago and got a lot of opportunities last year as a freshman. We feel like he is a guy that we can stick with and when Cooper gets rolling, he’s pretty good,” Copeland said. “So we’re looking for consistency out of him, but when he’s on the barrel and gets pitches to hit, he’s a really tough out.”
Junior catcher Logan Gregorio and Gauthier continued to hit the ball well, each collecting 2 hits in the ball game and raising their respective batting averages over .330.
It has now been over one month since the last time Gauthier played in a game for the Huskies and did not reach base. In that span, Gauthier raised his batting average from .222 to .340 and has cemented himself as one of the MAC’s best hitters.
The Huskies will play another midweek game at 5 p.m. Wednesday against Illinois State University in Normal. Live stats for the game will be available on Stat Broadcast and the game will be streamed on ESPN+.
