In its midweek showdown on the road against Iowa, baseball fell 3-2 in a game it had a good chance to win.

Senior Jacob Goldenberg was on the bump for the Huskies as he got his first start of the season. Despite walking five batters, he was effective for three innings as he surrendered one earned run.

The Huskies (16-22) opened up the scoring in the fourth inning to take a 1-0 lead. After a leadoff single by freshman Tommy Hook, sophomore Micah McCulloch came up with a clutch double down the left field line to drive Hook in from second with two outs.

The Hawkeyes (15-20) answered right back in the bottom half of the fourth with a run of their own to tie the game, 1-1. Goldenberg surrendered a leadoff walk to sophomore Taylor Kaufman, which came back to bite him as Kaufman later scored on a sacrifice fly by sophomore Jake Mangler to center field.

NIU regained the lead in the sixth inning when Hook scored his second run of the game for the Huskies. With one out, Hook drew a walk and scored from second on junior Alex Klonowski’s RBI single to center field.

Like earlier in the game, the Hawkeyes came right back as they put two runs on the board in the bottom half of the frame. Walks were once again the undoing for the Huskies as freshman Justin Ruckman walked the first two batters of the inning.

Following a sacrifice bunt to put runners on second and third base with one out, freshman Brian Sisler recorded an error, allowing both runners to score and Iowa to take a 3-2 lead.

“If we’d of played a little better defense tonight, pitched the ball a little better, you know the three runs they got were results of walks with nobody out,” said coach Ed Mathey. “They say those will come back to haunt you and they sure did tonight.”

The Huskies had a strong chance to even the score or take the lead in the eighth inning with Hook right in the middle of it all. With one out, Hook recorded a triple to right center. With Hook on third base, Klonowski was unable to bring him home as he popped out to the second basemen.

The two next batters, junior Jeff Zimmerman and McCulloch, each drew walks to load the bases. Senior Connor Duckhorn who was unable to capitalize on the opportunity, grounding out to first base.

“Well, you always want to capitalize, but you’ve got to understand the game of baseball,” Mathey said. “It’s one of those things where you’re not always going to capitalize, you know, nothing is for sure in baseball.”

Despite the loss, Mathey was pleased with the way the Huskies came out and performed as they have struggled in midweek games this season.

“We had good energy and we had a good opportunity here,” Mathey said. “I think the guys were ready to go, for the most part, and that’s good to see and hopefully it’ll transfer into the weekend.”