As right-hander Josh Goodwin walked to take the mound in the top of the seventh inning for NIU, he knew his job would be to control the damage.

After pitching six shutout innings, St. Xavier (9-10) had pieced together a single between two walks on starting pitcher Brandon Hodge, loading the bases.

NIU coach Ed Mathey opted to take Hodge out, calling on Goodwin to face a no-out, bases-loaded situation.

After a strikeout and a double-play, Goodwin guided the Huskies (5-12) out of the inning unscathed, still clinging to their 2-0 lead. Later, the Huskies added insurance en route to a 4-1 victory Thursday at Ralph McKenzie Field.

Mathey was impressed with his team’s performance on the mound, which, through a committee of five pitchers, allowed six hits. But still, as Goodwin took the mound, even the coach was nervous.

“In that situation, you’ve got to limit the damage,” the third-year coach said. “But, when we got the strikeout, we thought: ‘Well, the nine-hitter’s up. Maybe if we can get a ground ball, we can get the double play.’ And sure enough, it worked.”

Goodwin made quick work of his first batter in Brian Grupp, finishing the designated hitter off in three pitches.

“That was pretty big,” Goodwin said. “I was sort of surprised that he chased an 0-2 curveball, but I’m glad.”

That set the tone for Bryan Druktenis, who hit a sharp grounder to NIU shortstop Greg Larsen, who flipped the ball to second baseman Kyle Cherney for a clean double play, allowing Mathey to breathe a sigh of relief.

As Goodwin slapped the hands of his cheering teammates while headed to the dugout, he said knew the Huskies would win the game.

“It was an uplift to the whole team,” the 6-foot tall senior said. “It’s been sort of a rough go of it so far, and we’ve had a couple situations where we wouldn’t have gotten out of that without giving up runs, but we’re starting to turn things around, and you can see it in everybody.”

NIU had a 2-0 shutout until the final inning off solo home runs from Mike Santoro and Jeremy Busch early in the game and added two runs in the bottom of the eighth on two errors, a walk, a Santoro single and a sacrifice fly that sent Santoro in for the team’s fourth run.

“It’s big. It’s vital,” Mathey said of the extra run support. “You’re up 2-0, you’re an error and a home run away from a tie score, so any extra run you can add on there is huge.”