A day after dropping a 21-2 decision to Kent State, NIU senior right fielder Brian Toner called the loss a “gut check.”

The NIU baseball team had lost its last two games to the Golden Flashes by a combined 34-12 score and would have to face the potent KSU offense one more time.

The NIU pitching responded by giving up only two runs on four hits and the Huskies (13-16 overall, 4-5 MAC) benefitted from two plays at the plate to secure the series finale 5-2.

“I thought today was a very big baseball game for our team,” said NIU coach Ed Mathey. “I told them yesterday that we haven’t done anything at all to slow Kent State down and they’ve had their way with us. I thought it was important to be competitive.”

Sophomore pitcher Brian Smith (3-5) used a live fastball and accurate curve ball to finally silence the KSU bats, which had scored at least 13 runs for five straight games.

Smith held the Golden Flashes (16-11, 6-3) to three hits, reliever Mark Badgley struck out three of the six batters he faced with blazing fastballs and Matt German picked up his sixth save.

Trailing 2-1 in the bottom of the seventh, NIU hit three straight singles and scored on a controversial call at the plate that went NIU’s way. A suicide squeeze by second baseman Mark Besteman scored Jeff Thomas on the next play to take the lead.

The Huskies threatened again in the eighth with two runners on and two out. Toner was called off the bench to pinch hit and he delivered a two-run double to the right field gap to seal the win.

“Coach told me be ready all game,” said Toner, who sat the game out with a sore knee. “When he called me, I knew all I had to do was find a hole, which I did.”

Game 1 on Friday was a struggle for both teams, as 30-mph winds flung the infield dirt around. But Kent State eventually exploded for six runs in the fifth inning off starter Nick Hall, including three straight first-pitch RBI singles.

NIU first baseman Scott Simon answered with a two-run single in the bottom half of the inning, but the Golden Flashes scored five more times the next two innings. Trailing 13-7 in the bottom of the ninth, NIU clawed back with three runs thanks to sloppy KSU fielding, but couldn’t finish the comeback.

Game 2 on Saturday turned into a nightmare for NIU pitchers as the Golden Flashes totalled a season-high 21 runs on 17 hits. NIU starter Trevor Feeney struck out a career-high eight batters but gave up seven earned runs. Thanks to eight NIU errors, Kent State got six-run innings in the third and ninth.

“Yesterday was a joke,” Smith said. “We don’t expect that to happen again. It was a fluke. It reminded all of us about last year and how much we don’t want to go through that again.”