In its opening weekend of conference play, baseball lost two of its three games to Buffalo at two off-campus sites.

The Huskies (3-17-1, 1-2 MAC) took down the Bulls (10-7, 2-1 MAC) in the first game of the series Friday, 15-9, at Chicago State. The Huskies recorded 10 hits and had four players record multi-hit games, led by infielder Justin Fletcher who had four hits.

The Bulls got the scoring started in the top of the second as infielder Tyler Mautner hit a solo shot down the left field line. The Huskies responded by scoring seven total runs in the next three innings to take a 7-1 lead going into the top of the fifth inning.

Over the next two innings, the Bulls answered with four runs of their own to cut the deficit to 7-5 going into the bottom of the sixth inning. The Huskies got all four of those runs back in the bottom half of the sixth inning, two of them coming on a two-run blast from first baseman Alex Klonowski.

Buffalo once again stormed back with four runs in the next two innings, but in the bottom of the eighth the Huskies put the game out of reach for good by pushing four more runs across.

“Offensively we did a good of job of executing some fundamental plays that manufactured some runs — safety squeezes and sacrifice bunts,” said coach Ed Mathey, according to a news release. “But what I was really proud of was when Buffalo scored three runs in two of their innings, we responded with runs of our own to extend our lead, and I think that was big for us tonight.”

In game two Saturday at Chicago State, the Huskies got a strong pitching performance from Eli Anderson in a 3-2 loss.

Anderson tossed a complete game, giving up three earned runs on eight hits and just two walks while striking out seven batters.

Buffalo got the scoring going early as it put two runs on the board in the top of the first inning. Anderson walked two batters in the inning, which came back to bite him when outfielder Matt Pollock singled to right field with the bases loaded to drive in two runs.

“Outside of the first inning of play, Eli was solid tonight,” Mathey said, according to a news release. “He gave up two walks in the inning and both of those guys scored in the inning. Offensively, we had our opportunities we just needed to be more opportunistic in our approach.”

With the Huskies trailing 3-0 in the seventh inning, they scored one run each in the bottom of the seventh and eighth inning to cut the lead to 3-2. Despite scoring in those two innings, the Huskies could have gotten more as they stranded four base runners. In the bottom of the ninth, the Huskies went down in order without a fight.

Buffalo closed out the series with a 3-1 victory Sunday at Wheaton College. The Bulls struck first in the top of the fourth inning, scoring two runs on two hits. They added one more in the top of the fifth inning on a sacrifice fly to lead 3-0 going into the sixth inning.

The Huskies got a run back in the bottom half of the sixth inning when infielder Brian Sisler reached on a fielding error by the third baseman that allowed infielder Tommy Hook to score from third base.

The Huskies had a chance to add more in that inning as well as in the bottom of the seventh inning, but they left the bases loaded both times.

“We left a lot of runners on base today, which is a good news, bad news situation,” Mathey said, according to a news release. “We just have to bring those runners home.”

Klonowski pitched a solid seven innings for the Huskies, giving up three earned runs on four hits while striking out five batters.