BOWLING GREEN, OH – The Northern Illinois University baseball team had its two-game winning streak snapped with a 7-5 loss to host Bowling Green Saturday afternoon at Steller Field.

Despite staking a 1-0 lead and shelling out 12 hits, the Huskies couldn't overcome a late Falcons' rally as BG plated four runs in the fifth and one in the sixth to pick up its 11th win of the season. NIU fell to 18-32 overall, and 7-16 in the Mid-American Conference.

"Tough loss today," Huskies' head coach Mike Kunigonis said. "We battled 'til the very last out. Unfortunately we came up a little short."

NIU took a 1-0 lead in the first inning when Kam Smith (Colonial Beach, Va./The Steward School) drove in Samuel Vega (Vega Baja, Puerto Rico/Southwestern Junior College) on an RBI sacrifice fly, and later moved ahead 3-2 in the fifth after an RBI sac fly from Jake Dunham (Plainfield, Ill./Plainfield North) and a Ty Jandrowski (Kenosha, Wis./Madison College) RBI single to second base. But a three-run Falcons' home run in the fifth put BG in front 6-3. The Huskies did close within one at 6-5 when they pushed across two runs – via a Brad Wood (Orland Park, Ill./St. Laurence) RBI double and a Tommy Szczasny (Tinley Park, Ill./Lincoln-Way North) run-scoring single – in the sixth however the Huskies stranded two runners on base thereafter and were held without another hit in the final three innings.

"They earned every run they scored and just had our number at the plate today," Kunigonis said.

Starting pitcher Michael Lasiewicz (McHenry, Ill./McHenry) suffered the loss as he scattered 10 hits and gave up seven runs. In 5 1/3 innings of work, he struck out five batters and walked two.

Vega finished with three hits to lead the Huskies' offense, while Wood, Szczasny and Smith each had two hits.

"We will bounce back and be ready for the series' win tomorrow," Kunigonis said.

NIU closes out the three-game set with a 12 noon game. Junior RHP William Anderson (Columbus, Ind./Columbus East) will take the mound for the Huskies.

--NIU--