Close games and a load of long-ball hitting provided positives in NIU's 2-3 showing at the Creighton University-Bud Lite Softball Invitational over the weekend. Three of the five tournament games were decided by one run with the 6-10 Huskies coming out...

If Huskie Athletic Director Gerald O'Dell were a comedian, his sense of timing wouldn't get him a ticket out of First City, let alone a gig at Second City. There are no good times to announce the impending elimination of a sport, but on the scale of better...

Amidst all of the basketball hoopla, the NIU volleyball team is keeping busy. Especially coach Pete Waite, who has been on the recruiting trail ever since the season ended. To show for his work, Waite landed two top prospects that will fill the outside...

After an eight-year off-season, the Huskie baseball program recently threw out its first pitch with nationwide classified ads for head coaching prospects with Division I college experience. NIU Athletic Director Gerald O'Dell said since the announcement...

In its constant quest to earn national respect and gain an automatic berth to the NCAA tournament, the North Star Conference has turned its volume up a notch in order to be heard. A notch? Maybe even two. Behind the new leadership of Commissioner Arnold...

There's a new dog in town, there are new scoreboards in the fieldhouse and there's a new look for NIU athletics. The most recent step in the upgrading of the NIU athletic program was the installment of two new scoreboards and a new scorer's table at Chick...

It looks as if NIU might soon be playing baseball again on Huskie Diamond. The diamond, which is located northwest of Huskie Stadium, has been used only by the softball team since the university dropped its baseball program in 1982. But Athletic Director...

At the end of the 1989 NIU softball season Julie Sexton had only one home run among her hit totals. Four months later Sexton came through with three home runs over five games to lead the Huskies to the championship of the Illinois Central College Tournament...

Scoring runs wins ballgames. But the NIU softball team's one run in 28 innings of play over the weekend left the Huskies winless in their own tournament. Illinois State and Wisconsin-Parkside played the role of spoiler for NIU. The Redbirds claimed the...

Fall softball is underway for the NIU contingent this weekend. Head softball coach Dee Abrahamson and her team will play host to the Huskie Invitational tourney, which will be played on both Saturday (Sept. 16) and Sunday (Sept. 17) at Huskie Diamond....

Athletic Director Gerald O'Dell, using words like "deplorable," "embarrassment" and "anitquated" to describe the condition of Huskie Stadium, said Friday NIU is considering a renovation of the 24-year-old structure. The university recently invited four...

Although NCAA officials did not give the NIU softball team a 1989 national tournament bid, the season's final statistics indicate the Huskies might have belonged. The Huskies, whose 38-7 record was the fourth-best in the country, ranked among the nation's...