Logan Gregorio (Naperville, Ill./Benedictine) and Gavin Baldwin (Nashville, Ill./SEMO) both hit their 10th home runs of the season Sunday afternoon but the Northern Illinois University baseball team could not keep pace with the Butler Bulldogs in a 15-10 defeat at Bulldog Park.

Gregorio was 3-for-5 with two home runs, three RBI and three runs scored on Sunday. Baldwin was 1-for-3 with a home run, two RBI and two runs scored. The duo is the only one in the Mid-American Conference this season to each have 10 home runs.

“They’ve been great for us all year,” said head coach Ryan Copeland. “I think moving Logan into the two-hole lately and having Gavin behind him to protect him has been a really good move for our lineup. They see the ball really well and do a good job of finding a way to get a good pitch to hit just about every single at-bat.”

NIU (9-17) and Butler both scored three runs in both the first and second innings. The Huskies’ second inning was highlighted by back-to-back home runs from Gregorio and Baldwin. The Bulldogs scored their first six runs all on the long ball with a Ryan Drumm three-run blast tying the game.

Butler (10-17) took its first lead of the game in the bottom of the third when a Zach Munton RBI single put the Bulldogs up 7-6. A Jack Bello run-scoring single in the fourth, along with a Harry Carr sacrifice fly, extended Butler’s lead to 9-6. The Huskies got back on the board in the top of the fifth. With two outs in the inning Charlie Parcell (Des Plaines, Ill./Maine West) singled to right field then stole second base. Gregorio then launched his second home run of the day to get NIU within a run at 9-8. Butler responded in the bottom half of the fifth, scoring four runs with two outs to extend its lead to 13-8.

“When you’re constantly going back and forth, I think offensively you start to feel some pressure to score every single inning and that’s just not how this game is played,” Copeland said. “Going into the later part of the game we had six hits, but it felt like more because we had some free passes early. When scoring like we did this weekend isn’t enough, you’re left searching for areas you can be better despite doing a pretty good job offensively over the series.”

The Bulldogs tacked on another run in the sixth to go up 14-8. NIU attempted a rally in the eighth. Baldwin led off with a walk, getting to second on a groundout and to third on a wild pitch. After a flyout for the second out, Ben Loyd (Pleasant Prairie, Wis./Kaskaskia College) hit a single to right field to bring in Baldwin to score and put NIU down five, 14-9. JP Gauthier (De Pere, Wis./Illinois State) followed with a double to right to score Loyd and make the score 14-10. That was as close as NIU would get. Butler added another insurance run in the bottom of the eighth and then retired NIU in order in the ninth to make the final score 15-10.

Gauthier was 1-for-3 with his RBI double. The senior outfielder was 7-for-17 in the series at Butler this weekend with two doubles, three home runs and seven RBI. Chad Saner (Springfield, Ill./Creighton) started on the mound and allowed six runs over an inning-plus of work. Freshman Alex Graber (Fort Wayne, Ind./Homestead) pitched the final 2.2 innings for NIU, allowing one unearned run on one hit with three strikeouts.

“We’ve been strugging on the mound for a better part of a month,” said Copeland. “I take full responsibility for that. We have a lot of arm talent on this pitching staff and we need to find solutions to getting outs. We’re scoring runs and we need these guys to compliment that.”

The Huskies head back to the Hoosier State on Wednesday, April 2 to take on Purdue. First Pitch at Alexander Field at is 5 p.m. CT.