Still basking in Mid-American Conference Player of the Week honors, Noel Danielson wanted to one-up himself Wednesday against Valparaiso.

In the Huskies’ 8-2 victory, the junior centerfielder tied the record of 51 runs scored in a single season, set by junior Tom O’Neal in 1992.

Danielson was brought home on a Dan Urban single to right field, giving the Huskies the first run of the day. The junior college transfer went 1-for-3, walked in his first two at-bats and had two RBI.

“A lot of luck goes into in it,” Danielson said about the run record. “I just want to credit Dan Urban for getting me in. But it is kinda nice to have.”

“We brought in Noel because we knew he was going to be an impact guy,” said coach Dave Schrage. “We definitely found ourselves a leadoff hitter. If he continues to be at the leadoff position, he can do a lot of good things.”

Apparently, the Valparaiso team that defeated nationally-ranked Notre Dame did not show up for the game against NIU. The Huskies tagged the Crusaders for 10 hits.

Two batters after Urban’s RBI single, Rob Marconi hit a sacrifice fly to right field to bring in John Brock, giving the Huskies the 2-0 lead.

The Crusaders cut the lead by half in the bottom of the second when Kyle Young hit an RBI single to right, giving NIU a 2-1 advantage.

NIU got the two-run lead back in the third inning when Marconi hit a single to left, scoring Pat Kerrigan. Bilal Omar added two more runs on an error on the third baseman, bringing in Marconi and Trevor Stocking to put NIU up 5-1.

Valparaiso leadoff hitter Chris Moore hit a solo home run in the top of the fourth, cutting the Huskies’ lead to three, 5-2.

But in the sixth inning, Kerrigan hit a double that almost hit Valparaiso second baseman Chris Moore in the face and scored John Brock for the 6-2 lead. Danielson continued the Huskies’ tear, adding two more runs in the seventh inning to take the 8-2 win.

The Huskies need one more win to match last season’s mark and four more to reach 1,000 wins for the program.

“We’ve had some quality mid-week victories,” Schrage said. “[Valparaiso] beat Notre Dame, they beat Ball State two games out of three. This is a quality win for us.”

The Huskies received another pitching gem from Brad Gavelek (5-5). The senior went five and one-third innings and struck out seven Crusader batters and gave up only two earned runs. Dan Badgley came in for relief in the sixth inning for two and two-thirds innings.

Steve Sankey came in to pitch the final inning and struck out the final batter.