In its home weekend series, NIU baseball won two of three games over Akron.

The Huskies (8-20, 2-4 MAC) bounced back after being swept last weekend by Kent State and won its first MAC series of the season.

“That is our goal,” said NIU coach Ed Mathey. “Sweeps are nice, but if you win the series, you’re going to be where you want to be at the end of the year.”

NIU won game one, 10-5 and game three, 8-2, while it lost game two 8-1. In the two Huskies wins, they did what Mathey has been looking for them to do; get its bats out.

In those two games, NIU scored a total of 18 runs while getting 19 hits. Senior Alex Jones was big for NIU in those two games, as he had five hits and six RBIs.

In the third inning of game three, Troy White also came up big as he hit a three-run home run, for his long ball of the season.

“Our team is capable of this,” Mathey said. “And they know that, and this is the standard that we need to have and set going forward. When you’re scoring runs and you’re threatening to score runs, it makes it easier on everybody.”

The Huskies also got big pitching performances in games one and three from Taylor Nawrocki and Jake Hermsen.

Nawrocki and Hermsen both gave NIU eight innings, as well as six strikeouts, while Nawrocki gave up five runs and Hermsen only gave up two.

“I was just attacking the zone,” Hermsen said. “I was trying to throw strikes and make them beat me. They hit a lot of ground balls and I have a good defense behind me, so I was just trying to keep guys off base.”

In game two, the Zips had the advantage on the mound as Pat Dyer pitched a complete game, allowing one run, while recording seven strikeouts.

Akron coach Rick Rembielak said they key to the series came down to strong pitching.

“I think it certainly starts on the mound,” Rembielak said. “If you have some good bats to face, you have to work ahead of them and stay ahead and have command.”