DeKALB | Every Wednesday, Brothers Bar and Grill in downtown Iowa City has ten cent chicken wings at their “Wing Ding Wednesday.”

Wednesday night at Duane Banks Field, pitchers were a dime a dozen for the Hawkeyes. Iowa (15-13) used seven pitchers to post a 4-3 win.

For the second straight game, NIU (20-13) was forced to play catch up, as it didn’t scratch across a run until the sixth inning.

NIU has now lost back-to-back games for the first time in over a month.

“We are in a little two-day funk here,” NIU coach Ed Mathey said. “We didn’t get the hits when we needed them. We had guys up in situations that we want them up there in, but we just didn’t get it done.”

The Hawkeyes put up a two spot in the first inning on an RBI double by junior center fielder Travis Sweet, and an RBI ground out by sophomore first baseman T.J. Cataldo.

Iowa manufactured runs in both the second and fourth innings before junior right fielder Danny Reed stretched his hitting streak to 10 games with an RBI single that scored junior third baseman Jesse Seykora.

In the eighth inning, freshman Jordin Hood continued to come through in the clutch. The second baseman rapped a two-run single up the middle to close the gap to 4-3.

Iowa closer junior Mike Schurz came in to stop the bleeding with a scoreless inning and a third for his seventh save of the season.

“We had some great opportunities with guys on base,” Mathey said. “We just didn’t get the hit when we needed to.”

The Huskies will look to close the gap in the MAC West standings when MAC play resumes this weekend with a three-game set at second place Central Michigan.

NIU is a game behind the Broncos.

“Central Michigan was picked to win the MAC,” Mathey said. “Those will be big games for us, we need to come back home with a couple of wins.”