General | March 17 Story Links DeKalb, Ill. – This week in Huskie athletics Northern Illinois University has seven teams in action. NIU gymnastics heads to Mt. Pleasant, Mich. to compete in the MAC Championships on Saturday. Blake West will be a 16 seed and Landen Johnson will be a 32 seed, while Markel Baker […]
General | March 17
DeKalb, Ill. – This week in Huskie athletics Northern Illinois University has seven teams in action. NIU gymnastics heads to Mt. Pleasant, Mich. to compete in the MAC Championships on Saturday. Blake West will be a 16 seed and Landen Johnson will be a 32 seed, while Markel Baker is an alternate. NIU baseball will be at Ralph McKinzie Field for the first time in 2025 for a weekend series against CMU. NIU softball will head back on the road to take on Miami for a three-game weekend series. NIU men’s golf competes at the Arizona Thunderbirds Intercollegiate on Monday and Tuesday. NIU women’s tennis travels on the road and competes against Ball State on Friday and WMU on Sunday. NIU men’s tennis heads to Buffalo on Thursday and then Toledo on Saturday as MAC play continues.
Gymnastics
Saturday, March 22 at MAC Championships (Mt. Pleasant, Mich.), 1 p.m. – Watch
NIU gymnastics will compete at the Mid-American Conference Championships in Mt Pleasant, Mich. on Saturday, March 22. NIU closed out the regular season last week with duals against CMU and the University of Illinois.
Kiera O’Shea won on both vault and beam in Friday’s meet with CMU while Aliyah Kelly won on the all-around in the meet. O’Shea won the all-around on Sunday while Mikayla Brown won on beam.
Kiera O’Shea won on vault at the 2024 MAC Championships with a 9.925. That score was a career high and tied the Huskies all-time high.
Wrestling
Thursday, March 20 -Saturday, March 22 at NCAA Championships (Philadelphia, PA.) – Watch
The Huskies wrestling program makes their return to the NCAA Division I Wrestling Championships as Blake West (Shakopee, Minn./Shakopee) and Landen Johnson (Owatonna, Minn./Owatonna) will represent the Huskies.
West, who won the MAC 125-pound title, makes his second appearance at the NCAA championship, holding the No. 16 seed in the bracket. He will face Max Gallagher of Penn in his opening round after defeating Gallagher at the 60th Midlands Championships in December. Johnson took third at the MAC Championships, has the No. 32 seed and will face Richard Fedalen of Columbia in his debut at the national tournament.
Baseball
Friday, March 21 vs CMU, 3 p.m. – Watch Live Stats
Saturday, March 22 vs CMU, 2 p.m. – Watch Live Stats
Sunday, March 23 vs CMU, 1 p.m. – Watch Live Stats
The NIU baseball team opens the home portion of its 2025 schedule this weekend with a three-game series against Central Michigan at Ralph McKinzie Field at Walt & Janice Owens Park. The Huskies went 7-10 on their 17-game road trip to start the season. NIU was swept in last weekend’s series at Miami. Junior first baseman Gavin Baldwin became the first Huskie in over 20 years to have a three home run game on Sunday, going 3-for-4 with five RBI. Baldwin is second in the MAC in home runs with seven and fourth in RBI with 22. Central Michigan is 5-15 on the season and 2-1 in the MAC after taking two out of three games last weekend against Ohio. The Huskies took two out of three at CMU last season. A full preview will be available on NIUHuskies.com later this week.
Softball
Friday, Feb. 21 at Miami (Oxford, Ohio), 2 p.m. –
Saturday, Feb. 22 at Miami (Oxford, Ohio), 12 p.m. –
Sunday, Feb. 23 at Miami (Oxford, Ohio), 2 p.m. –
After starting conference play 2-1, the Huskies softball team hits the road for a road stretch at Miami (OH). The Huskies and RedHawks will face off at 2 p.m. on March 21 before concluding the series with a doubleheader on March 22.
Brianna Pechman led the team with a .625 batting average last week, scoring five runs on five hits. Jenna Turner led the team with six runs on seven hits, including a double and a triple. Danielle Stewart and Madison Mathews each recorded home runs for NIU as Stewart also pitched a complete game to open conference play for NIU. Through four games last week, the Huskies held a .330 batting average and saw Stewart and Lily Cassell collect wins in the pitchers circle.
Men’s Golf
Monday, March 17 – Tuesday, March 18 at Arizona Thunderbirds Intercollegiate – Scores
NIU continues its trip to Arizona this week at the Arizona Thunderbirds Intercollegiate, hosted by Arizona at Tucson Country Club. The Huskies took seventh place at last week’s GCU Invitational, led by senior Ben Sluzas’ 10th place showing individually. Sluzas tied his season-low round in the opening round with a four-under par 67 and carded a 69 in the final round to finish the tournament at even par. It was his second top-10 finish this season. Felix Krammer finished in the top-20 for the fifth straight tournament with a 54-hole score of one-over par 214. The tournament features four teams ranked in the top-30 of the country.
Women’s Tennis
Friday, March 21 at Ball State, 12 p.m. –
Sunday, March 23 at WMU, 12 p.m. –
The NIU women’s tennis team will travel to Ball State on Friday and Western Michigan on Sunday. Last week the Huskies took down EMU 5-2 and Wisconsin-Whitewater 7-0 in a Sunday double header. The Huskies are now 14-3 and 1-0 in MAC play. NIU has won their last three duals and nine of their last 10.
Last week’s MAC player of the week Maria Dzemeshkevich won at No. 1 singles 6-2, 3-6, 7-5 against EMU.
Men’s Tennis
Thursday, March 20 at Buffalo, 12 p.m. –
Saturday, March 22 at Toledo, 12 p.m. –
The NIU men’s tennis team will continue MAC play this week with road trips to Buffalo on Thursday and Toledo on Saturday. The Huskies fell to Ball State and Western Michigan last week. Iker Gaztambide Arrastia took two singles wins on the week and a doubles win with Federico Scotuzzi on Thursday against Ball State.
— NIU–
