DEKALB – The NIU baseball team (17-36, 11-13 MAC) will play in the Mid-American Conference tournament for the second straight season for the first time since the 2007 and 2008 seasons. The seventh seeded Huskies will take on the two-seed and MAC West regular season Champions Central Michigan (29-26, 16-8 MAC) in the first round on Wednesday at Noon CT.
The Huskies are coming off of two-straight wins in the final series of the regular season against Miami (Ohio) to help NIU make the tournament and eliminate Miami from contention. In NIU's first win against Miami, they got a quality outing from RHP
Joe Hawks to help him earn MAC West Pitcher of the Week in the final selection of 2017.
The NIU pitching staff got a number of quality performances from starters in Hawks and game three starter
Donovin Sims along with freshmen relievers
Alec Barger,
Nathan Thomas and
Blake Walker looking strong against the Redhawks. Barger pitched an inning in game one striking out two batters, Thomas earned the win in game two pitching two and two-thirds innings in the ninth, tenth and 11th striking out six batters and Walker pitched three scoreless in game three.
At the plate, the Huskies finished the regular season with a .249 team batting average led by juniors
Roderick Bynum and
Samuel Vega. Bynum played and started in center field in every game but one this season, leading the team offensively in batting average (.304) runs scored (36), triples (5), and slugging percentage (.429). Vega has been a mainstay in the infield, now as the everyday starter at second base, hit .302 in 51 games and 50 starts with a team-high 26 RBIs.
Earlier this season, NIU and CMU played a three-game series in Mount Pleasant, Mich. where the Chippewas won the series two games to one. The Huskies won game one of the series in blowout fashion by a score of 18-6 but dropped the next two by scores of 12-9 and 3-1.
The MAC tournament is a double elimination format so the Huskies will have to drop two games to be knocked out. If NIU wins their first round game, they will play the winner of Western Michigan and Eastern Michigan at 3:30 p.m. CT. If they lose their first round game, they will play the loser of WMU and EMU at 8:30 a.m. CT. HuskieBall fans can follow the team at the MAC tournament on Twitter @NIU_Baseball and @MACSports.
