THIBODAUX, La. - The Northern Illinois University baseball team fell behind early Saturday afternoon and committed five errors in the field in a 10-2 loss to the Nicholls Colonels at Ben Meyer Diamond at Ray E. Didier Field.
Nicholls (2-0) got off to a fast start with Narvin Booker getting hit by a
Ty Brachbill (Shelbyville, Ill./Shelbyville) pitch and a one-out single from Fisher Ingersoll. A double steal moved the runners to second and third. A Logan Mock groundout to third baseman
Ryan Birr (Brownsburg, Ind./SIU) brought in Booker to give the Colonels a 1-0 lead. Jaden Collura drew a walk then reached second base on a wild pitch. Back-to-back two-out hits from Aaron Biediger and Tyler Johnson extended the lead to 3-0.
NIU (0-2) got its first hit of the game with one out in the top of the second on a
Will Couchman (Edina, Minn./NIACC) single to right field. Nicholls starting pitcher Alec Sparks got
Cooper Cohn (McHenry, Ill./McHenry) to hit into an inning-ending double play to keep the Huskies scoreless. The Colonels scored five runs in the bottom of the third, sparked by a two-RBI single from Biediger, to take an 8-0 lead. The inning started with Mock reaching on an error, with a second error loading the bases with no outs.
"Our starting pitching needs to be better than it was today," said head coach
Ryan Copeland. "It just set the tone for the entire game and then our defense fell apart in that third inning. It's just very uncharacteristic of what we've done here in the last year-plus"
Nicholls put two more runs on the board in the fourth to take a 10-0 lead. NIU got those two runs back in the top of the sixth.
Gavin Baldwin (Nashville, Ill./SEMO) led it off with a single through the left side of the infield, reaching second on a Birr groundout.
Charlie Parcell (Des Plaines, Ill./Maine West) then laced a base hit to centerfield that got Baldwin to third with one out.
JP Gauthier (De Pere, Wis./Illinois State) drew a pinch-hit walk to load the bases. After a strikeout by Sparks,
Andrew Smart (Evanston, Ill./Oakton CC) drove in two runs with a single to make the score 10-2.
NIU relievers
Clayton Taylor (Columbus, Ind./Kaskaskia College) and Sebastian Guttierez (Westchester, Ill./Morton College) each threw a scoreless inning Saturday in their first appearances for NIU.
Mason Ruh (Milwaukee, Wis./Wisconsin Lutheran HS) and
Alex Day (Tinley Park, Ill./Andrew) also had a scoreless inning out of the bullpen. Smart was 2-for-3 with his two RBI. Parcell was 1-for-3 with a walk.
"Our bullpen was pretty solid today," Copeland said. "Those guys did a really good job, including
Carter Cox (St. Peters, Mo./Fort Zumwalt South) who competed well. They gave us a chance to continue to play the game and we got some guys in our lineup late that made their debuts. That's always a double-edged sword. You're usually down quite a bit when you start clearing the bench, but at the same time we have to figure out what we have and that's part of what this non-conference schedule is for. Nicholls only scored in three of the eight innings, and if you go into a game knowing that as a pitching staff you probably take that. When one of those is a five-spot, it's tough to come back from."
The Huskies and Colonels wrap up their weekend series on Sunday, Feb. 16 at 11 a.m.
—NIU—
