Baseball | May 7
DeKALB, IL – The Northern Illinois University baseball team opens its final homestand of the regular season this weekend, hosting the Ball State Cardinals for three games at Ralph McKinzie Field at Walt & Janice Owens Park beginning Friday, May 8 at 3 p.m.
On Saturday NIU will host "Bark At The Park" for the 2 p.m. game. Fans will be able to enter raffle giveaways courtesy of Tails Humane Society of DeKalb. Prior to Sunday's 1 p.m. game NIU will honor it's 12 seniors –
Gavin Baldwin (Nashville, Ill./SEMO),
Will Couchman (Edina, Minn./NIACC),
Ivan Dahlberg (Minooka, Ill./Illinois-Springfield),
Tyler Deleskiewicz (Genoa City, Wis./Milwaukee),
Blake Gaskey (Davenport, Iowa/Ohio),
John Lyman (Minneapolis, Minn./NIACC),
Tommy Meyer (Wauwatosa, Wis./Wauwatosa East),
Gavin Micklinghoff (McHenry, Ill./McHenry County College),
Caden Robertson (Magnolia, Texas/Central Oklahoma),
Cole Smith (Dubuque, Iowa/Bradley),
Matt Tarr (North Aurora, Ill./Purdue) and
Max Vaisvila (Villa Park, Ill./Wabash Valley College) – for Senior Day.
This group of seniors has been instrumental in NIU clinching its first Mid-American Conference tournament berth since 2019. At 29-16, the Huskies can reach 30 wins for the first time since 2011. NIU has won a program record 19 conference games this season, sweeping Central Michigan last weekend for the Huskies' first road conference sweep since 2017. The Huskies are tied with Miami for second in the league at 19-8, one game back of Kent State at 20-7.
The Huskies have outscored their opponents 129-78 over the last 14 games, during which NIU has an 11-3 record. NIU has a team on-base percentage of .446 in this stretch. Freshman outfielder
Wyatt Wawro (Darien, Ill./Downers Grove South) has a hit in every game of this stretch including multiple hits in each of the last nine games. Wawro is hitting .510 during his 14-game hitting streak with a .614 on-base percentage. He is now third in the MAC with a .391 batting average and a .520 on-base percentage. Wawro is 12
th in the country in on-base percentage.
Ball State (21-26, 14-13 MAC) enters the weekend holding on to the sixth and final MAC Tournament spot. The Cardinals have a two-game lead over UMass with six regular season games remaining. Ball State was swept last weekend at Toledo and last won a conference series when it took two out of three games against Akron April 10-12. The Cardinals are second in the MAC with 58 home runs and fourth with a team batting average of .288.
Following this weekend's series NIU hosts Milwaukee for the final home game of the regular season on Tuesday, May 12 at 3 p.m.
--NIU--
