After losing a tough game last night to ISU, the Huskies needed to get things going in the right direction once again. Senior Brad Gavelek made sure that happened.

NIU defeated a hot Valparaiso club 8-2 and Gavelek picked up his fifth win of the season to even his record up at 5-5.

Gavelek went five and one third innings giving up 7 hits, 2 runs, 3 walks, and had 7 strikeouts.

“Gav didn’t have his best stuff today, but he battled,” said coach Dave Schrage. “That’s Gav though, he was still battling for us.”

Gavelek ran into some jams in the game, especially in the third inning, giving up two hits and walking a batter to load the bases with no one out.

However, he kept on fighting and struck out the next two batters. Then, with two outs, Gavelek got a fielder’s choice to get out of the inning unscathed.

In the fourth he gave up his second run of the ballgame as he got a ball up in the zone and payed for it, allowing a long home run over the left center fence.

Gavelek ran into a bit of trouble again in the sixth, but Dan Badgley came in from the bullpen and got a popout and a strikeout to leave Gavelek with only two earned runs.

“I think he did a good job hitting his spots all day,” said catcher Jim McArthur. “He made a couple mistakes but for the most part he kept the ball down and hit the spots. When he gets into trouble it’s because he leaves a ball up in the zone.”