Things were looking good for the NIU baseball team on Wednesday at Ralph McKinzie Field.

The sun was shining, the Huskies were up 4-1 against Eastern Illinois, and starting pitcher Nathan Stillwell was cruising right along. Then the fifth inning came along.

The Panthers sent 12 batters to the plate in the decisive inning and scored seven runs in their 10-7 win over the Huskies.

The first six batters in the fifth reached base against Stillwell, including three bunt hits to the right side.

EIU coach Jim Schmitz said his team had been having trouble scoring runs recently, so the Panthers practiced bunting prior to Wednesday’s game.

“We talk about winning in different ways,” Schmitz said. “We work real hard on the short game, and that opened the door.”

Panther third baseman Ryan Campbell opened the inning with a ringing double to left field. Perhaps the play of the game came next when NIU first baseman Scott Simon was unable to handle Kevin Carkeek’s ground ball down the first-base line.

That gave the Panthers runners on first and third with nobody out, and the two bunts came next, sending the Huskies on their downward spiral.

“Our main philosophy is to get outs on bunts, and we didn’t do that today,” NIU coach Ed Mathey said. “That started things tumbling.