Junior outfielder Tommy Hook is working to help the Huskies get back to .500 after a rough 9-22 start.

Hook is a career .277 hitter, playing and starting in more than 100 games in his NIU career. He’s spent time as an infielder, outfielder and catcher, making him a versatile piece for the Huskies’ roster.

The junior is coming off a sophomore year where his numbers took a dip – he hit .257 with 46 hits after a freshman year in which he hit .298 with 51 hits. Hook has bounced back with great play through 31 games this year, hitting .342 and leading the Huskies in on-base percentage at .458. He has a .989 fielding percentage and leads the team in walks with 17.

Q: What were your thoughts at bat in the 10th inning and that last play of [game three against Central Michigan University on Saturday]?

A: In the 10th inning I was up and seeing the ball pretty well and I knew I had to get on. I found a way to get a hit and unfortunately Coach [Kunigonis] pinch ran for me. He doesn’t think I’m fast but I am. The last play I was at the edge of my seat all game long kind of losing my mind a little bit, and to see Alex [Smith] cross the plate was unbelievable and probably one of the best feelings of the year so far. I know we are going to have a lot more of them.

Q: How do you feel you played during the series against Central Michigan [last weekend]?

A: I felt great. Overall, my performance didn’t matter whatsoever. We won the series and that’s all we have to do to make our ultimate goal, which is to get to the MAC Championship and to advance to regionals. Other than that, I was seeing the ball well and hits were falling, but I feel a lot better today than I did at the beginning of the week and that’s because we just won a series.

Q: Was there anything Coach Kunigonis was trying to implement leading up to this point?

A: It started last week. I was working with Coach [Kunigonis and] our hitting coach, Coach [Luke] Stewart. I had to get healthy – my foot was banged up so I got that healthy and Coach Stewart was telling me [to] be short to the ball, get the barrel out and see balls up the middle. My success is mainly because of the coaches.

Q: What did you like from the team overall in the series?

A: Our resilience. All weekend long we were winning games. We ended up losing later on, then we lost the first game of the doubleheader only to battle back. It was a long day and we pulled out one of the cooler things in baseball which is a walk-off. I couldn’t be more proud of every single guy on this team.

Q: Was there anything you could have capitalized better on?

A: As a team we needed to do a better job of capitalizing on the lack of confidence that the pitcher had on the other team. We could have done a better job getting guys on – myself included. We had to make better plays.

Q: Do you think the team’s current record speaks to how hard you guys actually play?

A: No, and it’s very cliché obviously to say that our record doesn’t show that, but honestly if you or anyone else was at a practice [or] at a baseball game, every single game you’ll see how hard we play. The talented teams that we played, we should of won at least six or seven more games if not more if we played like we did today.

Q: Is there anything you want to take from this weekend heading into your next matchup?

A: Yeah, we just can’t play this long. Those games took too long. Now we just need to take on not giving up. We need to remember this win because there have been times in the past this year [when] things might not have gone our way. We were dealt adversity and we would fold, and in this case we weren’t playing our best baseball, but we found a way to win in the end.