DeKALB – NIU baseball’s (16-27, 5-16) pitching staff dazzled as the Huskies earned a close 4-2 victory over Western Michigan University (12-27, 8-13 MAC).
“That’s just how the game is supposed to be played,” said NIU baseball head coach Ryan Copeland.
Freshman pitcher Carter Cox earned the start in Sunday’s series finale, his second of the season. Cox went 5 innings in his start, tying his longest outing of the season.
The lefty starter allowed 1 run on 4 hits and 6 walks while striking out six batters. Cox was also credited with the win for the game, the first of his collegiate career.
“We felt good about Carter (Cox) because he competes his tail off, and he walked 6 guys, he wasn’t very sharp but we always know he’s going to find a way to compete,” Copeland said.
Sophomore pitcher Danny Cihocki was the only other pitcher used in the game for the Huskies, going four innings to earn his 4th save of the season.
Cihocki allowed 1 unearned run in his 4 innings of work. Cihocki only allowed 2 hits in his outing and didn’t surrender any free passes.
“Danny (Cihocki) has been in a hybrid role for us all year,” Copeland said. “He established himself as our best guy out of the pen pretty early in the season and we’ve kind of used him in different roles. We started him not long ago against Northwestern but for this team right now, he’s best out of our bullpen.”
The Huskies offense ranks first in the MAC in home runs with 69 and is among the league’s best in offense this season.
NIU’s offense scored only 4 runs in the win, the first time the Huskies were able to win a game scoring less than 5 runs since April 1 against Purdue University.
Senior outfielder Gavin Baldwin was the only member of the Huskies’ offense to record multiple hits and multiple RBIs in the game.
Baldwin went 2/4 at the plate with an RBI single and an RBI double in each of his first two at bats.
“Gavin (Baldwin) has been kind of struggling lately and we’ve been trying to figure some things out with him and get him back to consistent at-bats staying in the strike zone,” Copeland said. “Hopefully today is a sign of things to come for him because when we have him rolling and we got Logan (Gregorio) and (Will) Couchman and those guys swinging the bat like they do, we are really tough to beat in the middle of the order.”
Senior outfielder JP Gauthier extended his hitting streak to 11 games with his first inning RBI single, his second longest hitting streak so far this season.
Gauthier has also reached base in each of his last 25 games and has recorded a hit in 24 of his last 25 games.
Sophomore catcher Cooper Cohn had the only other RBI for the Huskies in Sunday’s win with his RBI single in the third inning.
The Huskies next game will be at 11 a.m. Tuesday against the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in Franklin, Wisconsin. Live stats for the game will be available via Stat Broadcast and the game will be livestreamed on ESPN+.
