DeKALB, IL – In the faint remaining glimmers of daylight,
Ivan Dahlberg (Minooka, Ill./Illinois-Springfield) hit a walk-off grand slam in the bottom of the 10
th inning to give the Northern Illinois University baseball team a 17-13 win over the Miami RedHawks at Ralph McKinzie Field at Walt & Janice Owens Park Friday afternoon.
"My teammates got on base and gave me a shot to do that," said Dahlberg after his game-winning grand slam, his second home run of the game. "I was ready to go and see what I'm made of. It means a lot to get this one, especially against a good program like Miami."
Dahlberg had five runs batted in on the day as did first baseman
Gavin Baldwin (Nashville, Ill./SEMO).
Cole Smith (Dubuque, Iowa/Bradley) was 4-for-6 in the game with three runs scored.
Caden Robertson (Magnolia, Texas/Central Oklahoma) was 3-for-5 to extend his hitting streak to eight games.
NIU (11-7, 4-3 MAC) was down 13-8 going into the bottom of the eighth inning.
Charlie Parcell (Des Plaines, Ill./Maine West) drew a walk with two outs to load the bases. Smith then reached on an infield single that went off the glove of a diving Ignacio Gonzalez at second base that scored a run and made the score 13-9. Baldwin then cleared the bases with a three-run double to get NIU within one at 13-12. Robertson then tied the game 13-13 on a single through the right side, scoring Baldwin from second.
Miami (14-6, 5-2 MAC) got its lead-off man on base in the top of the 10
th as Dominic Krupinski was hit by a
Carter Cox (St. Peters, Mo./Fort Zumwalt South) pitch. Cox bounced back and struck out the game to keep it tied. Parcell led off the bottom of the inning with his third walk of the game, followed by a Smith single that got Parcell to third. After a groundout with the infield in, Miami reliever Austin Berggren intentionally walked Robertson. Dahlberg crushed the first pitch he saw over the right field fence to win the game 17-13.
"That's about as good of a college baseball game as you're going to get," said head coach
Ryan Copeland after Friday's series opener. "We got to Miami's starter early who was lights out last week. We didn't pitch it like we need to and got behind a couple times, but we always had an answer. When it looked the most dire we put a five-spot on the board to tie the game. Our bullpen stepped up and got us a very emotional win."
NIU trailed 3-0 going into the bottom of the third. The Huskies batted around in the inning, scoring six runs highlighted by
Cooper Cohn's (McHenry, Ill./McHenry) three-run home run that put NIU up 6-3. Miami answered in the top of the fourth when a Tommy Harrison grand slam gave the RedHawks a 7-6 lead. Dahlberg tied the game 7-7 in the bottom of the fourth with his first home run of the game.
Nolan Sandee (Glendale, Wis./Nicolet) hit his first home run of the season in the bottom of the sixth, a solo shot that put NIU ahead 7-6.
Cox earned the win in relief, throwing 1.1 innings out of the bullpen with three strikeouts.
Danny Cihocki (Princeton, Ill./Lake Land College) had five strikeouts in five innings to start the game, allowing seven runs on nine hits.
"We'll enjoy this win but we have to be able to bounce back and be ready to go tomorrow," Copeland said.
The two teams are back at it Saturday, March 21 at 2 p.m.
--NIU--
