Final Stats

AKRON, Ohio -- The Northern Illinois University softball team got out to a good start Thursday night, but Akron's offense proved to be too much as the Zips took a 9-5 win to end the Huskies' season at the Mid-American Conference Tournament.

NIU (28-25) got out to an early 2-0 lead in the second, but five runs in the second and three runs in the fourth by Akron (25-25) were the difference-makers for the Zips.

"It's really tough," said NIU head coach Christina Sutcliffe. "The end of any season is always a hard thing. Our seniors are phenomenal players and phenomenal people. To say good bye to them is really hard. I said earlier at our banquet that I hate the end of the year because I'm going to have to say good bye to some phenomenal people."



The Huskies got on the board first in the second. Bekah Harnish (Maple Park, Ill./Burlington Central) got things started with a double into left-center, while Alaynie Woollard (New Castle, Ind./New Castle) brought her home on a single in the next at-bat. Followign a walk to Allyson Hecht (Huntington Beach, Calif./Edison), Caitlyn Warren (Naperville, Ill./Naperville North) made it 2-0 on a single to center.

"I think offensively we had a pretty good day," Sutcliffe said. "Could have had a couple better at-bats early in, but we continued to put the ball in play hard and continued to fight as we did all year. We just couldn't get off the field when we needed to."

Akron summarily answered NIU's runs with five of its own in the bottom half of the frame. After a Taryn Allmon walk, Savannah Fruin tied the game on one swing with a home run to left field. A Sara Pearson triple kept the Zips going and she scored on an error to make it a 3-2 game. Taylor Kirian tripled home another run, while Alyssa Nicholas' seeing-eye single brought in the final run of the inning for a 5-2 Akron advantage.

NIU trimmed one run off the Zip lead in the third. Singles by Kali Kossakowski (Elgin, Ill./St. Edward) and Kayti Grable (Santee, Calif./Santana) put runners on the corners with one out. Emily Naegele (Oak Forest, Ill./Oak Forest) proceeded to plate Kossakowski with a deep sacrifice fly, making it a 5-3 deficit.

However, the Zips came back with more runs. In the third, Fruin split the gap in right-center for a one-out double, while Pearson brought in the run on a double of her own to make it 6-3. Akron added to its lead in the fourth, as Allmon plated a run on a fielder's choice, a run scored on a double steal and Fruin singled home a run to push the score to 9-3.

With opportunities to come back running out, the Huskies scored twice in the sixth to get within 9-5. Harnish led off with a single and Woollard walked to put two on with none out. Jessica Sturm (Wichita, Kan./Goddard) brought one run in with a double to center. In the next at-bat, Hecht had a perfectly placed groundout to score another.

Meanwhile, Tara Thacker (Uniontown, Ohio/North Canton Hoover) kept the Huskies in the game with effective relief pitching. Over 2.2 innings, the freshman -- who grew up about 15 miles from Firestone Stadium -- allowed just two hits and a walk while facing 11 batters.

In the seventh, Kossakowski reached base on a hit by pitch and Naegele got on due to an error, putting two runners on base with one out. A Harnish fielder's choice put runners on the corners, but Akron got a popout to end the game.

The Huskies finish the season with a 28-25 overall record and an 11-9 MAC mark. In addition, NIU had three First Team All-MAC performers in Grable, Naegele and Sturm and had a pair of MAC All-Freshman honorees in Harnish and Keegan Hayes.

Make sure to stay tuned to NIUHuskies.com for all the latest news. Also, be sure to follow the team on Facebook at NIU Softball and on Twitter @NIUSoftball.