DEKALB, Ill. – The Northern Illinois University softball team continues its 10-game homestand when UIC comes to town on Tuesday at 3 p.m. at Mary M. Bell Field.
The Huskies (9-20, 1-2 MAC) are playing the Flames for the third time this season, splitting the first two games at the Hoosier Classic on March 16-17. In the first game, junior
Alex Frenz (Oakville, Mo. /Oakville) came in to relief senior
Tara Thacker (Uniontown, Ohio /North Canton Hoover) and threw three- and-two-thirds innings of shutout softball en route to the Huskies 4-2 win over the Flames. In the second game, the Flames defeated the Huskies, 1-0, in nine innings.
"You obviously want to win the series," said NIU head softball coach
Christina Sutcliffe. "You want to go in and take it in the second or third game against them. They stole quite a bit on us in the second game we played them so we have got to narrow in on that and do a better job with that. "
This past weekend against Miami, NIU hit .213 including three extra-base hits.
Sam Schmidt (Lombard, Ill. /Willowbrook) led the Huskies with a .556 batting average and five hits. The NIU junior was the only Huskie to have two multi-hit games in the series. Senior
Alaynie Woollard (New Castle, Ind. /New Castle) batted .286 with a home run and four RBI in the second game against the RedHawks on Friday.
Senior starting pitcher
Tara Thacker (Uniontown, Ohio. /North Canton Hoover) posted an ERA of 1.83 in seven-and-two-thirds innings against Miami over the weekend. Freshman
Mackenzie Bryan (Elwood, Ind. /Elwood) picked up the only win for the Huskies in the circle. Bryan pitched five scoreless innings, surrendering two hits while striking out four in the second game against Miami last Friday.
Live stats and live streaming will be provided through niuhuskies.com. Fans can also follow the Huskie softball team on Twitter
@NIUSoftball, Facebook
@NIU.Softball, and Instagram
@niu_softball. Fans can also follow up-to-date updates of the game through NIU Huskies Game day
@NIUscores.
–NIU–
