PEORIA, Ill. -- Northern Illinois (6-13) overcame an ugly injury to its starting pitcher, a lengthy weather delay and Bradley's sterling bullpen to earn a 7-6 non-conference baseball victory versus the Braves (15-6) Wednesday afternoon at O'Brien Field.
In what was to be the first of two 7-inning games, Huskies second baseman Kyle Cherney singled home the game-winning run in the eighth inning to deliver the victory. While the grounds crew was preparing the field for the second game, O'Brien Field endured its second heavy downpour of the day, forcing the cancellation of the nightcap.
A strong wind gusting out to left field helped Bradley get on the board first. Senior leftfielder Ryan Kenny launched a fly ball high into the air and the wind carried it out over the left centerfield wall for a solo home run and a 1-0 Bradley lead. Northern Illinois left fielder Eric Sansouci did not need the wind as he answered with a powerful home run of his own to left field to lead off the second inning.
The game took an ugly turn during Bradley's 2-run spurt in the bottom of the second. Joe Napoli led off with a single and went to third when Justin Carr followed with a double down the right field line. Second baseman Ryan Curry followed with a line drive that hit Huskies starting pitcher Mark Badgley square in the right side of the face and rolled away for an RBI single. Badgley fell to the ground and remained motionless, but was able to speak with the coaches and trainers. An ambulance was immediately called to the scene and Badgley was taken to Methodist Medical Center, where he will remain overnight for observation.
Jeff Hall relieved Badgley, and after the 17-minute delay, he got third baseman Jason Newburger to ground into a double play that scored Carr from third and gave the Braves a 3-2 lead. After the Huskies pulled even by scoring a pair of unearned runs in the third inning, Bradley again jumped ahead, 5-3, when Johnny Sage came through with a 2-out, 2-run triple in the fourth.
After Kenny flew out to end the fourth, lightning forced the teams off the field, which was soon drenched by heavy rain and covered in hail stones. With tornado sirens soon to follow, fans were brought inside the clubhouse hallway beneath the stadium as a severe thunderstorm blew threw downtown Peoria, causing a 1-hour, 58-minute delay.
Northern Illinois took advantage of some poor Bradley defense coming out of the delay, plating three unearned runs in the top of the fifth to take a 6-5 lead. All three runs scored when Cherney blooped a bases-loaded, 2-out single down the right field line. The first two runs scored on the hit and Sancouci hustled around and scored when Kenny struggled to pick up the ball. Cherney tried to advance to second on Kenny's throw home, but was tagged out to end the inning.
That third run proved to be costly. Bradley managed to force extra innings when freshman pinch-hitter Peter Malinowski tied the score at 6-6 with a sacrifice fly in the bottom of the seventh, but the Huskies made a loser of reliever Peter Elmer (0-1) for the first time this season with the eighth-inning run. Elmer took over for starter Josh Caruso coming out of the rain delay and pitched his longest outing (4.0 innings) in six appearances this season. The run in the eighth was the first earned run Elmer has surrendered this season and was just the fifth time the Bradley bullpen had allowed an earned run in 18 collective appearances this year.
Coming off a 2-games-to-1 series win this past weekend at Indiana State, Bradley will return to the Valley road this weekend by visiting Southwest Missouri State for a 3-game set. The first game is scheduled for 7 p.m. Friday night.
