After winning its last three games in a row, NIU’s softball team was beat by Western Michigan in Kalamazoo, Mich. on two walk-off home runs.

The Huskies (23-23 overall, 10-6 MAC) dropped back to .500 on the year, as well as in the MAC standings, falling from second to third place after their losses to the Broncos (18-24 overall, 12-4 MAC).

Despite the two losses, freshman Stephanie Tofft remained hot at the plate, extending her school-record hitting streak to 36 games. Tofft went 3-for-7 this weekend, with two RBIs and extended her streak with a single in the fourth inning of game two.

The Huskies lost game one on Saturday by a score of 6-4 in ten innings.

NIU scored two runs in the top of the tenth to claim the lead 4-2.

However, the Huskies could not hold the lead. The Huskies gave up four runs in the tenth inning, capped off by junior Tara Buchanan’s three-run walk off home run.

NIU lost game two on Sunday, 7-6 in nine innings.

In the sixth inning, the Huskies were down 5-1 when their bats finally woke up, scoring four runs. The big play in the inning was a three-run home run by Dani Parrish to tie the game at five going into the bottom of the sixth inning.

Western Michigan answered with a run of its own in the sixth to make the score 6-5, but in the seventh inning, Zoe Sinner tied up the game with a home run to send the game into extras.

In the bottom of the ninth inning, Western Michigan’s Courtney Rousseau hit a lead-off walk-off home run to win the game for the Broncos 7-6.

This was the story of the weekend for the Huskies; Western Michigan made big plays when they needed to.

“Western Michigan flat-out out-played us this weekend,” said softball head coach Lindsay Chouinard. “They got the big hits when they needed them and we didn’t. If we wanted to win the games, we needed to make plays on defense and get hits when opportunities presented themselves.”

Each conference game is now very important for the Huskies down the stretch.

“Every conference game is important,” Chouinard said. “This is what we have played for all year and we are now fighting to get into the tournament. We need to play better if we want to make it into the tournament.”