DEKALB, Ill. – The Northern Illinois University softball team couldn't figure the high-powered offense of visiting Miami University Friday as the Redhawks earned a doubleheader sweep by scores of 12-2 and 9-1 in Mid-American Conference play.

Due to the threat of inclement weather, the third game of the series will not be played Saturday, and will not be made up.

Miami slugged 18 hits, including seven home runs, combined as it moved its win streak to nine games in improving to a perfect 5-0 in MAC play. NIU moved to 2-3 in conference and 8-12 overall.

"We're better than three runs in two games so we need to figure out how to rattle a few more hits together," Huskies head coach Christina Sutcliffe said. "We're not going to hit four or five home runs a game, that's not our game. But we can easily score nine runs off their pitching. We just needed to make a better adjustment."

Both Katie Keller and Bianca Barone led the Huskies offense as they each went 2 for 3 combined at the plate. Barone connected for an RBI double in Game 1 and smacked a solo home run to left field in the second game, while Keller had a run-scoring single in the first inning of Game 1 that tied the score at 1-1. Defensively the Huskies carried a .947 fielding percentage.  

"I thought we played good defense," Sutcliffe said. "We had a game plan in place and our outfield did well with this wind especially, and our infield made a couple of nice plays. So I just think we needed to have a couple of better at bats and it would've been a different result."

The Huskies look to rebound next Tuesday when they travel to Chicago for a 4 p.m. single game with the University of Illinois-Chicago.

-NIU-