AVON, Ohio – The NIU baseball team (17-37, 11-13 MAC) fell in their MAC tournament first round game against Central Michigan (30-26, 16-8 MAC) by a final of 6-2. After taking an early 1-0 lead, a two error inning leading to two CMU runs turned the tides in the game.
 
"The same things that have plagued us all year got us against today in game one of the MAC tourney," Head Coach Mike Kunigonis said. "We need to be better at taking care of the baseball if we want to play at a high level."
 
In the Huskies' first inning, leadoff hitter Roderick Bynum smoked a triple to the right field wall and was driven home by an RBI groundout from Samuel Vega. NIU had opportunities to add to their 1-0 lead early as Jason Gasser led off the second with a double but was picked off and Brad Wood just missed a home run later in the inning but it was called foul.
 
Intermittent rain fell throughout the entirety of the game as starting pitcher Joe Hawks had five strikeouts through the first two innings but struggled with command as the rain fell harder during the third and fourth. Hawks' final line ended up being three and a third innings, two hits, five runs, three earned on three walks and five strikeouts.
 
"In a rainy, wet, slippery day like today, the team who limits their mistakes wins and that was the case today," Kunigonis said. "We will bounce back tomorrow and be ready for a tough EMU team."
 
NIU will head to the losers' bracket to face Eastern Michigan tomorrow with a 8:30 a.m. CT scheduled first pitch. The Huskies were swept by the Eagles in the three game series in DeKalb earlier this month in their final home games of 2017.
 
EMU lost their game to Western Michigan earlier today in extra innings as the Eagles came back from a 5-1 deficit to tie the game in the ninth inning, only to give up a run in the tenth to fall 6-5 to the Broncos. With more rain in the forecast for tomorrow in Avon, updates on the schedule will be made on niuhuskies.com and on Twitter @NIU_Baseball.