Thirty-three runs in three games.

That is what NIU (15-16 overall, 8-4 MAC) needed to take care of Akron in its second conference sweep this season.

“Akron is a good hitting team, and they make our pitchers work,” NIU head coach Ed Mathey said. “Good hitting teams like that force action on you and it was nice that we were able to come up with some scores on our own.”

Friday

NIU pitcher Dan Atkenson improved to 2-0 on the year with a 5-4 NIU victory. Atkenson gave up one hit and no runs in three innings after relieving starter Trevor Feeney, recording three strikeouts .

Jordin Hood knocked in his second game-winning run of the season after Justin Behm tied the game with a bases-loaded single. Hood went 2-for-5 with three RBIs, which improves his RBI total to 25 on the year.

Sunday – Game 1

Behm had a career day Sunday. The catcher went 3-for-5, collecting eight RBIs with two home runs – one of them a grand slam in the seventh inning – in NIU’s 14-11 win.

“That’s something that we needed,” Behm said. “We’ve had our ups and downs offensively and we came out and put up big numbers on a cold day.”

Trailing the Zips 9-3, the Huskies put six runs on the board in the sixth and scored five in the bottom of the seventh to take a 14-11 lead and close out the game.

NIU’s pitching struggled Sunday. Starter Adam Holdenrid allowed six earned runs on 10 hits in five innings of work.

“That’s not what we’ve been doing lately, but with the weather being cold like it is, it’s a little bit tougher on our pitchers,” Mathey said.

Sunday – Game 2

The offensive explosion continued in the second game as the Huskies scored three runs right out of the gate.

NIU pitcher Dave Reynolds earned the 14-10 victory in his first career MAC start, hurling five innings and allowing four earned runs. The sophomore improves to 4-0 on the year.

After Akron tied the score at three in the top of the third, NIU jumped right back in front, putting up a five-spot in the bottom half of the inning.

“The thing about the runs we scored today, a lot of them were answer runs,” Mathey said. “That’s good for us on the momentum side.”