Rallying from behind to take a 9-6 victory against Wofford College (5-2), NIU baseball (4-3) finished off its opening season road trip in the Carolinas with a win on Sunday.
The Huskies dug themselves into a hole early against the Terriers, falling down 5-0 through the first five innings.
Back-to-back four-run innings in the sixth and seventh innings, combined with 4.2 innings of one-run ball from the Huskies’ bullpen helped NIU climb back into the game and secure a victory.
Five pitchers came out of NIU’s bullpen, giving up just the one run on three hits and two walks.
Senior pitcher Gavin Micklinghoff was the first NIU pitcher to emerge from the bullpen, entering the game in the fifth inning with the Huskies trailing 5-0.
Micklinghoff was able to keep NIU in the ballgame, working 2.1 innings while allowing just one baserunner.
Senior pitcher John Lyman earned the save for the Huskies, entering the game with the tying run at the plate and nobody out.
Lyman worked out of the jam without surrendering a run and striking out a pair of Wofford batters.
“Sometimes people only focus on the bullpen when you have the lead and when things don’t go so well,” said NIU baseball head coach Ryan Copeland. “Part of their job is keeping our offense in striking range. And we were able to do that today. They’re more than capable of getting guys out. We’re trying to figure out guys’ roles and where they belong.”
Despite a rocky start on Sunday, senior pitcher Max Vaisvila was still able to rack up a season high nine strikeouts in his 4.1 innings of work.
Freshman outfielder Wyatt Wawro earned his first start of the season in the matchup against Wofford and he delivered three hits in four at-bats, as well as two runs batted in.
Wawro’s three hits were tied for the team lead with senior outfielder Caden Robertson and his two RBIs were also tied for the team lead with three other Huskies.
“We’re really high on Wyatt,” Copeland said. “He hasn’t had a whole lot of opportunities here so far. He’s going to be a big part of our future. If he keeps swinging the bat like that, he’s going to find himself in the lineup quite a bit.”
In last weekend’s series against North Carolina A&T, Robertson totaled five at-bats and struck out in all five.
Since then, he has gone 7-for-14 in his last four games while smacking a pair of home runs and striking out twice.
“I think Caden is trying to adjust to the changing levels,” Copeland said. “He had a lot of success at the Division II level and there’s good baseball there. It’s just a little different and we’ve seen some good arms so far. And I think the more at-bats he gets, the more pitches he sees, I think he’s going to put up some big time numbers. But, he’s dangerous at all times, and he has as much power to all fields as we probably ever had in our program.”
Junior outfielder Marcus Romero also totaled a pair of RBIs against the Terriers, going 2-for-5 while also scoring two runs.
Graduate student infielder Gavin Baldwin slugged his first home run of the season, a two-run blast in the seventh inning that put NIU up for good.
Baldwin hit 15 home runs last season, good for third on NIU’s single-season home run leaderboard.
UP NEXT
The Huskies’ next game will be at 1 p.m. Friday against Lindenwood University in St. Charles, Missouri. Live stats for the game will be available at SIDEARM Sports.
