DeKALB, IL – A new-look Northern Illinois University baseball team takes the field to start the 2025 season this weekend at Nicholls, starting on Friday night at 6:30 p.m. The Huskies have added over 20 new faces to a team that won 21 games a year ago in head coach Ryan Copeland's first season in the NIU dugout.
 
"Everyone's pretty aware of how many guys we brought in and how many we lost from last year," Copeland said. "We have 23 new guys starting the year and those are players that we've been watching, evaluating for quite some time. I really like the competition we have at multiple positions on the field. Every year we're trying to get a little bit better and a little more talented."
 
The Huskies re-tooled the pitching staff for 2025, adding 11 new arms. NIU does return two weekend starters in redshirt-junior Adam Brouwer (Tinley Park, Ill./Illinois-Springfield) and sophomore Ty Brachbill (Shelbyville, Ill./Shelbyville). Brouwer was one of three All-Mid-American Conference Second Team selections for NIU last season, leading the team with seven wins and finishing the year second on the team with 55 strikeouts and 73.1 innings pitched. He was 7-1 in 10 conference starts with a 3.62 ERA.
 
"We got to see in conference play last year what Adam can do and he was rewarded by being named All-MAC Second Team. The non-conference starts he made allowed him to continue to grow and get better throughout the year, and his conference numbers were outstanding."
 
Brachbill was 2-5 in his first season at NIU, leading the team with 59 strikeouts in 74.1 innings. He threw a complete game in the Huskies' 2-1 win at Central Michigan on April 26, 2024 allowing four hits while striking out six.
 
"With Ty we know the stuff is there. He's made a jump with his fastball velocity. We're just looking to get a more consistent version of Ty and finding a way to navigate some of those early start struggles, to continue to pitch deep in games. He continues to get better and better and we expect big things from him."
 
Junior left-hander Max Vaisvila (Villa Park, Ill./Wabash Valley College) and sixth-year senior Chad Saner (Springfield, Ill./Creighton) will also be vying for time in the NIU pitching rotation. Vaisvila had 36 strikeouts in 28.1 innings pitched in 2024 at Wabash Valley College. While at Loras College in 2023, Vaisvila led the Duhawks with 58.1 innings pitched and 56 strikeouts. Saner played Copeland at Illinois-Springfield before transferring to Creighton for last season. He had a record of 14-1 at UIS, twice earning First Team All-GLVC honors.
 
Sophomore outfielder Charlie Parcell (Des Plaines, Ill./Maine West) is NIU's top returning hitter. Parcell hit .277 in 52 games his freshman year, slugging 12 doubles and driving in 25 runs. He finished the year with a hit in eight of the last nine games.
 
 "Charlie did very well as a freshman as a left-handed bat at the top of the order. The jump for high school to college freshman is pretty tough, so we just had to go through some of the growing pains with some of the young guys knowing that they'd be in it for the long haul. The amount of playing time and at-bats Charlie got is going to benefit him."
 
Senior outfielder CJ Cepicky (St. Louis, Mo./Missouri) played in 38 games last year hitting five home runs with 18 RBI. He had an eight-game hitting streak from April 14-27. Copeland expressed excitement for his corps of catchers, led by senior Kaden Kosobucki (West De Pere, Wis./West De Pere) and junior transfer Logan Gregorio (Naperville, Ill./Benedictine). Kosobucki only appeared in four games in 2024 before an injury ended his season. He played in 24 games in 2023. Gregorio was a Fourth Team All-American by d3baseball.com after leading Benedictine to its first conference title in program history. He hit. 365 with 15 doubles, 10 home runs and 53 RBI.
 
"We want to be strong up the middle. Getting Kaden back is a huge plus for us. I really love our catching room. I tell those guys it's our quarterback room. They're in charge of everything on the field and need to be good back there behind the plate. Losing Colin Summerhill and Eric Erato is certainly tough, but we feel really good about the guys we brought in especially with Ben Loyd at shortstop and Will Couchman at second base. Logan Gregorio, another catcher, is a left-handed hitter who had a ton of success at Division III."
 
Ben Loyd (Pleasant Prairie, Wis./Kaskaskia College) hit .440 at Kaskaskia College in 2024 with 33 RBI. He was a Perfect Game All-American-Central Region coming out of Tremper High School after he hit .341 as a senior with 27 stolen bases. Will Couchman (Edina, Minn./NIACC) was an Honorable Mention All-Conference player last year at North Iowa Area Community College where he stole 19 bases and scored 38 runs.
 
NIU opens its season against a pair of defending conference champions. Nicholls was 38-22 last year, winning the Southland Conference tournament. Next weekend the Huskies take on Southeast Missouri State, the defending Ohio Valley Conference champs. The Huskies will host Central Michigan for its first home series at Ralph McKinzie Field at Walt and Janice Owens Park March 21-23. With all the new players this season, the expectations for Copeland continue to grow.
 
"We want to continue to elevate the expectations of our program. It's time to take that next step and be a program that year in, year out has enough talent to go win the MAC and I feel like we're getting there. I feel like we're in a position where we should be playing extremely meaningful games late in the season."
 
--NIU--