A trip up north resulted in another midweek, non-conference win and a season sweep of UW-Milwaukee for the NIU men’s baseball team.

NIU starter Matt Jernstad’s second consecutive victory lifted the Huskies (20-21) to a 5-3 win over the Panthers (14-27). Jernstad (2-4) pitched a career-long 8.2 innings, allowing three runs on five hits and recording five strikeouts. Huskies pitcher Andy Deain recorded the final out with a strikeout to earn his fifth save of the season.

“Matt had a great outing,” said head coach Ed Mathey. “He started out a little rough with a couple of walks, but he settled down quickly after that.”

NIU jumped on the Panthers early, scoring four runs with the help of three Panther errors in the third inning. With runners on first and second and one out, NIU third baseman Jordin Hood stroked a double for his 30th and 31st RBIs of the year.

“Our hitters were opportunistic,” Mathey said. “We had a couple of guys on base and Hood came up with a big double to score a couple of runs. Our offense did a decent job today.”

Jernstad struggled a bit in the beginning of the season and is now finding his groove in time to finish up the season and head into playoffs. The lefty pitched six shutout innings, before allowing a run in the seventh inning.

“I just threw my three different pitches for strikes and kept their hitters off-balanced,” Jernstad said. “I threw strikes early on in the count and the defense played really well out there. They made some good plays.”

Jernstad isn’t the only Huskie heating up toward the end of the season. Hood extended his hitting streak to 15 games Tuesday night and is now batting .315.

“He’s putting in the extra work and his bat is coming around to where we thought it would be this year,” Mathey said. “It couldn’t have happened at a better time and I hope he can continue that.”