Jamison Wells
A day after winning convincingly against Akron, the Northern Illinois baseball team was unable to string hits together against the Zips pitcher Pat Dyer and fell, 8-1.
The Huskies were not able to score until the sixth inning off of Dyer, who pitched a complete game.
“It was a flat day for us and I’m not really sure why at this point. At the end of the day I do know that we could not solve their pitcher, we hit a lot of first pitch pop ups and ground balls,” said head coach Ed Mathey.
“We always talk about a winning series, that’s our goal and that’s our job. We were hoping to get it done today but we’ll have to do it tomorrow – It’s just a matter of executing and doing it.”
While the Zips were putting together hits, they were at times unable to keep them away from the Northern Illinois infielders, as the Huskies turned three double plays in the contest. The Huskies totaled six hits in the game, NIU was only able to have one multiple hit inning, doing so in the bottom of the second.
Trailing 4-0 in the bottom of the sixth inning, Jamison Wells leadoff the inning with a walk and quickly stole second base for his 16th steal of the season. With two down and Jeff Zimmerman at the plate, Wells ran with reckless abandon as Zimmerman drove a ball through the right side and scored Wells from second to cut the lead, 4-1.
The Huskies would collect hits in the eighth (Alex Jones) and the ninth (Joe Battaglia) but were unable to put together rallies to cut into the deficit any further.
Akron scored two runs in the second, seventh and eighth innings, and posted a run in the first an fifth on 13 hits and two errors.
Despite the volume hits from Akron, the NIU pitching staff kept the hitters off balance as they struck out nine Zips batters, catching Akron batters looking five times in the ball game. Eli Anderson fanned two looking in the sixth inning.
Northern Illinois will look to close the series with a win at 1:05 p.m. Sunday, April 1.
For more information on NIU baseball and Huskie athletics, visit www.niuhuskies.com.
