GREENSBORO, N.C. – The North Carolina A&T Aggies scored nine unanswered runs to defeat the Northern Illinois University baseball team 10-3 on Saturday at World War Memorial Stadium, setting up a rubber game in the series on Monday.
 
The Huskies were held to four hits on the game. Senior third baseman Will Couchman (Edina, Minn./NIACC) was 2-for-4 with a double. Vinny Spotofora (Shorewood, Ill./Lake Land College) and Ivan Dahlberg (Minooka, Ill./Illinois-Springfield) also had doubles in the game.
 
North Carolina A&T (1-1) scored the first run of the game on a two-out RBI double by Bruce Wyche. The Huskies answered in the top of the second. Gavin Baldwin (Nashville, Ill./SEMO) was hit by a Gavin Sentell pitch to lead off the inning, getting to third on Couchman's double. A wild pitch allowed Baldwin to score to tie the game 1-1. Cooper Cohn (McHenry, Ill./McHenry) drew a walk to give NIU runners at the corners. Couchman scored on another Sentell wild pitch to give the Huskies a 2-1 lead.
 
NIU (1-1) starting pitcher Danny Cihocki (Princeton, Ill./Lake Land College) retired the Aggies side in the second and in the third. Dahlberg threw out Marcus Bradshaw trying to steal second base in the bottom of the third, then Cihocki struck out JT Taylor to end the inning. NIU tacked on another run in the top of the fourth as a Nolan Sandee (Glendale, Wis./Nicolet) sacrifice fly drove in Spotofora from third base to make the score 3-1.
 
"Danny gave us a pretty good start there," said head coach Ryan Copeland. "We just had some opportunities to go get a big hit and try to add on offensively and we weren't able to do that."
 
The Aggies tied the game in the bottom of the sixth. Tyler Smith led off with a single off Huskies reliever John Lyman (Minneapolis, Minn./NIACC). Wyche then hit a two-run home run over the left field fence to make the score 3-3. Lyman then struck out Savori Edwards before Matt Tarr (North Aurora, Ill./Purdue) entered the game and got the final two outs of the sixth. NC A&T took the lead in the seventh. With runners at the corners and one out Tyler Smith laced a single through the right side to bring home Bradshaw and put the Aggies up 4-3. Wyche followed with a sacrifice fly that scored Smith and made the score 5-3.
 
Kobie Cushing entered the game from the NC A&T bullpen in the top of the eighth and retired the Huskies in order. The Aggies then tacked on five runs in the bottom of the inning to secure the 10-3 win.
 
"For as good as our bullpen was yesterday, they were the opposite today," Copeland said. "Not only did we give up the lead, we didn't give our offense much of a chance to get going late in the game and find a way to win. We were trying to get some guys in to see what we can do. You're trying to learn about your club, especially the nine guys you can trust the most offensively and then what roles the bullpen can take."
 
Cihocki allowed one earned run on four hits in five innings, striking out five Aggies. Jordan Bright earned the win in relief for NC A&T, throwing two scoreless innings. Wyche was 3-for-4 at the plate with six RBI.
 
Sunday's series finale has been moved to Monday, Feb. 16 due to inclement weather in the forecast. First pitch on Monday is at 3 p.m. CT.
 
--NIU--