DeKALB, IL - Aaron Harper's (Hemet, Calif./Mt. San Jacinto CC) two-run single in the bottom of the ninth gave the Northern Illinois University baseball team a 6-5 victory over the defending Mid-American Conference champion Central Michigan Chippewas Sunday in a wild finish at Ralph McKinzie Field at Walt and Janice Owens Park.
 
"Anyone who has seen us play this season knows we don't give up," said head coach Mike Kunigonis. "We keep battling. This team has character and they bounced back after a couple tough games. These guys were ready to go today and it was awesome. We stuck with our gameplan offensively and had some key hits to the opposite field."
 
NIU (6-24, 3-9 MAC) trailed 5-3 going into the bottom of the eighth. Andre Demetral (Rochester, Mich./Florence Darling Tech) led off with a single. Harper then reached on an error by Central Michigan second baseman Luke Sefcik. A walk to Colin Summerhill (Chicago, Ill./Troy) loaded the bases. CMU reliever Ryan Palmblad struck out the next two batters, but walked Mason Kelley (Mt. Washington, Ky./Schoolcraft College) to bring in Demetral and make the score 5-4.
 
Central Michigan (17-13, 7-5 MAC) had a chance to score an insurance run in the top of the ninth. Christian Mitchelle was hit by a pitch with two outs and got to third on an errant pickoff attempt by NIU's Nick Bonk (Buffalo Grove, Ill./Stevenson). Bonk threw a pitch that went off catcher Kaden Kosobucki's (West De Pere, Wis./West De Pere) glove to the backstop. Mitchelle came home but did not touch home plate, allowing Kosobucki to tag him out and keep the deficit at one.
 
"It was a whole team effort today, especially on the final out in the top of the ninth," Kunigonis said. "We had 35 guys in the dugout watching that play and telling Kaden to tag the runner out."
 
Malik Peters (Calumet City, Ill./Mount Carmel) led off NIU's half of the ninth with a single to left centerfield. Eric Erato (Sussex, Wis./Sussex Hamilton) then reached on an infield chop single. A sacrifice bunt by Demetral moved the runners into scoring position with one out. Harper then stepped to the plate and knocked a single through the right side of the infield, scoring Peters and Erato for the 6-5 NIU win.
 
"Today was a day where we really needed to win," said Harper on his late-game heroics. "I got the pitch I wanted and put it through the hole to drive the guys in."
 
The Chippewas led 3-0 through three innings, scoring on two Sefcik sacrifice flies and a Robby Morgan RBI single. NIU got on the board in the bottom of the fourth. Erato led off with a triple for the Huskies' first hit off CMU starting pitcher Garrett Navarra. Demtral brought him in on a groundout to make the score 3-1. Cole Prout hit a home run in the sixth to extend the CMU lead to 4-1, but the Huskies scored twice in the bottom half of the inning on a Kosobucki sacrifice fly and a well-placed two-out RBI bunt single by Tyler Thierry (Bloomington, Ill./Heartland CC).
 
Erato, Demetral and Harper, NIU's first three batters in the lineup, each had two hits in the game as did Thierry. Bonk, Brandon Doty (Lincoln, Neb./New Mexico State) and Reagan Klawiter (Verona, Wis./Madison College) combined to throw three scoreless innings out of the bullpen. The win is the first for NIU over Central Michigan since 2018.
 
NIU is back home next weekend against Western Michigan in a three-game MAC series, starting Friday, April 14 at 3 p.m. CT. NIU Athletics will hold a formal dedication of Walt & Janice Owens Park prior to the 12 p.m. game on Sunday, April 16.
 
--NIU--