After the rainy weather cleared, the NIU baseball team finally took to the field this week.

The Huskies battled windy conditions in a 5-3 victory over Wisconsin-Milwaukee (5-16). Pitcher Tom Barry earned the victory for NIU (11-14) in five innings of work and improves to 2-0 on the year. The freshman allowed one earned run on seven hits, while notching three strikeouts.
NIU got off to a rocky start in the first after two consecutive hits and a walk. Facing bases loaded with no outs, Barry struck out Milwaukee’s Shaun Wegner before getting Ben Long to ground into an inning ending double play.

“Tommy was tested early, and he answered it,” said NIU head coach Ed Mathey. “He gave us a great chance to win a game today. He’s been working hard, and I think we’re going to see some very nice things out of him in time.”

The Huskies got right to work in their half of the first with freshman Alex Jones leading off with a walk. Jones then scored on junior Dave Reynolds’ double down the left field line. Reynolds, who hit 1-3, now has a team-high 20-game hitting streak.

Milwaukee then responded with its first score in the second, but NIU picked up two more runs to bring the score to 3-1. The Panthers had many opportunities to score but left nine runners on base.

“Milwaukee has always been a scrappy baseball club,” Mathey said. “They had some great opportunities to score, but our pitchers did a real nice job. We managed to wiggle out of some situations, and that was good.”

The Panthers then brought the score to within one in the fifth inning on Matt Behren’s throwing error, but Jones extended the lead again with a home run to left that just cleared the foul pole to lead off the home half of the fifth.

“I had no idea it was gone off the bat,” Jones said. “When I first hit it, I was hoping with the wind blowing so sharp that it wouldn’t blow foul on me.”

Jones finished the game hitting 2-4 with two RBI and two runs scored.

Milwaukee picked up its third run on Tim Patzman’s home run in the seventh, but it wasn’t enough to overcome NIU’s relievers. NIU pitcher Tom Zelasko picked up his third save in the contest.

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