DeKALB, Ill. – With each team owning a win in the season series entering play on Tuesday afternoon, it was the Northern Illinois Huskies that did enough to take the rubber game with a 10-5 victory over the UIC Flames at Ralph McKinzie Field.
 
NIU (10-20) got out to a 3-0 lead, but Derrick Patrick's three-run home run for UIC (16-13) in the top of third inning evened the ledger. The Huskies came back and scored four times with two outs in the bottom of that frame to take the lead for good.
 
Patrick and Scott Ota combined for five of UIC's eight hits, four of its five RBI and three of its five runs scored. Patrick hit his second career round-tripper, while Ota moved into a tie for fourth place on the program's all-time list with 10 career triples.
 
How It Happened
After UIC starting pitcher Nick Oliff danced his way out of an early jam in the bottom of the first inning, the Huskies broke through with a three spot in the second. Samuel Vega and Alex Rodriguez drove in runs for Northern Illinois, while Connor Montgomery took home on a double steal.
 
The Flames bounced right back to tie the score during the next half inning. David Becker opened the frame with a base hit and he moved all the way to third on a failed pickoff attempt at first base. After Thomas Norton walked, the center fielder Patrick uncorked a three-run home run to the trees in right field to even the score at three runs apiece. It was the first home run of the season for the Chicagoan, and the second of his career.
 
NIU had an answer of its own, scoring four times with two outs in the bottom of the third. The Huskies loaded the bases against Oliff with nobody away before the right-hander got a strikeout and sly ball to Patrick in shallow left-center field that kept everyone at their station. Rodriguez walked to bring home a run before Josh Mutter laced a two-run single back up the middle against reliever Joey Fredrickson. Vega also drove in his second run of the afternoon with a base hit to right field.
 
Both staffs settled downed and neither team tallied in a run in the fourth through sixth innings. It was in the bottom of the seventh when the Huskies expanded their lead with three more runs. Once again it was Rodriguez and Mutter in on the scoring plays as the pair combined to drive in all three of the tallies.
 
UIC's offense went back to work in the top of the eighth. Scott Ota opened the inning with a single and after moving to second on a passed ball and third base on an error, NIU's third of the day, he scored when Aaron Ackerman clubbed a two-bagger to left field. With two runners in scoring position with only one away, the Flames were unable to cut any further into the deficit.
 
After UIC's Nick Simonian struck out the side in the bottom of the eighth, the Flames were staring down a six-run deficit in the top of the ninth. A pair of pinch hitters failed to reach before Patrick kept the inning alive with a base hit. He would then come all the way around to score to make it 10-5 when Ota blasted his third triple of the season, and second in the last four games, to left-center field. Ota would be stranded 90 feet away as the game soon ended on a strikeout.
 
Beyond the Box Score

• Scott Ota's third triple of the season in the top of the ninth was the 10^th of his career. It broke a tie with Curtis Granderson and moved the junior into a tie for fourth on the program's all-time alongside Mike Petak and John Rosner.
• Aaron Ackerman hit his team-best ninth double of the season Tuesday. Three of those two-base hits have come against the Huskies as he also doubled twice in three at-bats at Granderson Stadium on March 14.
• Northern Illinois won the season series against UIC, 2-1. The Flames outscored the Huskies over the three contests, 24-18, after pouring on a season-high 18 runs in the first game of the series on March 14.
• NIU's 10 runs were the most scored by a UIC opponent this season, and the most in the program's last 74 games. It was the highest output since Mizzou scored 11 times to beat the Flames by a run on March 5, 2017. In that same span, the Flames have score 10-plus runs 12 times.
• Redshirt sophomore Fred Gosbeth made his UIC debut on the mound in the bottom of the seventh inning.

Up Next

• UIC will resume Horizon League play with a three-game series that will take place at Milwaukee, April 13-15.
• Last season the Flames and Panthers played five times at Granderson Stadium due to unplayable field conditions at Henry Aaron Field when the teams were set to play in Milwaukee. UIC won four of those five contests.