NIU baseball coach Ed Mathey wants to play .500 ball on the road and win big at home. The team accomplished his goal this weekend, but Mathey couldn’t help but be disappointed, knowing the team could have had more.

The Huskies took the first two games before dropping the final two contests, including a heartbreaking last game versus Western Michigan this weekend.

he series versus the Broncos (11-16, 5-4 MAC) marked the first time in two weeks that NIU (17-12, 5-3 MAC) has played any MAC games because of last weekend’s weather cancellations versus Buffalo.

Game 1 of the series was controlled by Mark Skrukrud (2-1), who earned a complete game victory, allowing three runs on nine hits in a 7-3 win.

“He battles for you,” said Mathey of Skrukrud. “He wasn’t as sharp as he’s been in the past few outings, but he pitched to win. The fourth inning they had the bases loaded with no outs, but only got one run. That was huge for us.”

The pitching for Game 2, however, outperformed Game 1 as Zach Minor (4-1) earned a complete game victory of his own.

Minor allowed one run on five hits to take the first game of the Saturday doubleheader 2-1.

Both teams put up one run in the first inning but neither scored the rest of the way until the Huskies added a run in the final frame.

The designated hitter Greg Larsen began the inning with a single before being replaced by pinch runner Mark Mallo. Mallo worked his way over to third with one out before scoring on a short chopper from leadoff hitter Mike Brown to put the Huskies over the top.

Game 3 wasn’t as favorable to NIU. By the sixth inning, the team found itself down 10-0 as the Broncos unleashed their previous frustrations on the NIU pitching staff.

The team made a rally, scoring six runs in the final three innings, but the deficit proved too much to overcome as the Huskies fell 10-6.

“The second ballgame didn’t go very well,” Mathey said. “We didn’t have enough offense until it was too late.”

NIU went for the series win Sunday in Game 4, but came up short. The Huskies lost 4-3 in a 15 inning marathon that lasted three hours and fifty-five minutes.