NIU baseball coach Ed Mathey was the beneficiary of a coaching carousel this past offseason, one which involved Illinois State’s Jim Brownlee.

Mathey became NIU’s coach after Brownlee left Evansville, where he was a mainstay for 23 years. From there, then-NIU coach Dave Schrage took over for Brownlee at Evansville.

“Part of me wants to thank coach Brownlee for taking the job and going to Illinois State,” said Mathey, who was at North Central College prior to NIU. “I’m just pretty fortunate to have the opportunity to coach here at Northern. These guys are a great bunch of guys, and I think we can consistently win here.”

The first-year Huskie coach tied the NIU record for wins by a first-year coach when the Huskies beat Illinois State 7-5.

Mathey’s 24 victories ties Schrage’s mark he set in 2000 for most by a first year Huskie coach.

“Coach is doing a great job because he instills confidence in all the players,” NIU right fielder Mike Santoro said. “He never gets down on us, he never loses confidence in us. He keeps the same calmness to him no matter what the score is and that helps us players.”

Mathey knows the record will be something to look back on when the season’s over, but senior Dan Urban sees no reason why the first-year coach can’t continually succeed.

“He can succeed very well,” Urban said. “If he keeps getting a lot of good local talent around here he can keep building the program up. Hopefully we can keep him around for awhile.”

With 15 games remaining on the schedule, Mathey wants to extend the most wins by a first-year coach.

“I hope we don’t stop at 24,” Mathey said. “I’d like to set that mark somewhere in the mid 30s if possible, maybe even higher.”