The only positive NIU baseball coach Ed Mathey could take from his team’s April 19 game against Chicago State was that the Huskies won.

NIU won 5-1, but Mathey said his team relied too heavily on its opponent’s mistakes.

Today, the Huskies (11-28-1) will get a second chance to get it right, in Mathey’s eyes. The team will face CSU (4-39) at 3 p.m., this time on the road.

“I don’t like going in expecting errors,” Mathey said. “We need to go in and manufacture runs.”

Mathey said he hopes to produce more runs by improving his team’s approach on balls pitched to the outer portion of the plate.

In the last game, NIU took an early 4-0 lead and was able to ride it to victory. Mathey isn’t assuming the Huskies will get the same treatment this time around.

“I think we definitely had some run scoring opportunities that we didn’t cash in on,” the third-year coach said. “We need to continue to drive guys home.”

Hoping to replicate NIU’s stellar freshman pitching from Brian Smith and Adam Holdenrid, Mathey said he will start another freshman, Dave Nykiel.

In Nykiel’s 10 appearances this season, he has amounted a 4.74 ERA with 19 strikeouts in as many innings pitched.

“Hopefully he can get over some of the nervousness of his first start early,” Mathey said. “For Dave to be successful, he needs to go in and show he can throw strikes effectively. It’ll engage our defense to make plays.”

Starting catcher Anthony Venetucci was out of the lineup for most of the weekend due to a concussion he sustained in Friday’s game at Akron, and is not expected to play in today’s game.

Venetucci suffered the injury when running to first base on a ground-ball play. Because of a wild throw, Akron first baseman Kurt Davidson was forced to move off the bag, and attempted to swipe Venetucci out after catching the ball.

Davidson’s glove struck the NIU catcher in the back of the head, rendering him unconscious. Mathey was not sure when Venetucci would be able to return to the lineup.