Defending Big Ten baseball champion Minnesota capitalized on three Huskies mistakes in the 11th inning to top NIU 5-4 in its first game of the Iowa Cubs/Hawkeye Classic on Friday in Des Moines, Iowa.

Minnesota’s Tony Leseman reached first after being hit by a Trevor Wohlgemuth pitch. Leseman then advanced to second after a passed ball and rounded third for the winning run after Matt Fornasiere hit a ball that deflected off Wohlgemuth’s glove.

“We didn’t play defense today,” NIU coach Ed Mathey said. “We did enough pitching and enough hitting to win. Our defense didn’t play up to speed, and that’s the reason for today’s outcome.”

NIU pitchers gave up five hits in the 11 innings, but Minnesota (9-8 overall) capitalized on NIU’s mistakes, Mathey said.

Mike Hochhauser led NIU’s offense, going two for five with a solo home run and two runs scored. Mike Brown went one for three with a run scored and an RBI for NIU (12-9).

Northern Colorado 5, NIU 0

NIU was handed its second-straight loss on Saturday and its first shutout of the season by the Bears. The shutout was the first for NIU since April 26, 2003.

Northern Colorado (17-11), which ousted Iowa 3-0 Friday, got its second shutout of the weekend.

Scott Simon and Hochhauser provided the only two hits the Huskies managed off of Northern Colorado starter Pat O’Neil. Simon singled in the second, and Hochhauser singled in the seventh.

O’Neil struck out six NIU batters in seven innings to improve to 4-0.

“We simply didn’t make adjustments to their pitcher,” Mathey said. “Their guy was throwing strikes on the outside corner, and we continually tried to pull the ball. When a guy is hitting the corner and you try to pull the ball, you get pop-ups and groundouts to the shortstop. We had plenty of those today.”

Iowa 4, NIU 2

The Huskies fell to Iowa (6-11) while Joe Piekarz took the loss.