Northern Illinois baseball coach Ryan Copeland had thought about the moment for a couple of years.
When he took over in June 2023, he set out to change the standard and heighten expectations, inside and outside of the program. The Huskies hadn’t been to the NCAA Tournament since 1972 and never had won the Mid-American Conference Tournament. They were 10-43 the season before he arrived.
Copeland, the former coach at Division II Illinois-Springfield, thought NIU was “a dormant program that had potential.” He didn’t know when the Huskies might make a run at an NCAA Tournament bid, but he believed they could improve by recruiting players from a quality talent base in the Chicago area and by getting the most out of them with a coaching staff he believes in.
And he envisioned what it would be like to get there.
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The moment arrived Saturday night in Avon, Ohio. Senior pitcher Max Vaisvila induced a groundout for the final out of a 5-1 win over Toledo, and the Huskies players rushed the field and collapsed into a pile to celebrate the MAC Tournament championship. It came in NIU’s last season in the conference before moving to the Horizon League in most sports next season.
“It was even better than I could have imagined, just surreal,” Copeland said. “Just a bunch of emotion and just so happy for our program, our players, our coaches, support staff and all of our alums that have been with us through thick and thin.”
NIU (35-17), which has set a program record for wins, received the No. 3 seed in the NCAA Tournament’s Tallahassee Regional. The Huskies will play No. 2 seed Coastal Carolina (37-21) at 7 p.m. Friday on ESPN Plus in their first game of the double-elimination regional.
They’re one of two local teams to make the tournament. Coach Sean McDermott led Illinois-Chicago to its first NCAA Tournament berth since 2019 — and his first as a head coach — by winning the Missouri Valley Conference Tournament.
The Flames (27-27-1) are seeded fourth in the Atlanta Regional and play host and top seed Georgia Tech (48-9) — the No. 2 national seed — at 11 a.m. Friday on ACC Network.
McDermott was an assistant or associate head coach under Mike Dee for UIC’s six previous NCAA Tournament appearances, and he called Dee “the architect of what this place is.” He took over as head coach when Dee retired in June 2021 and now has led UIC back to the tournament after being named the MVC Coach of the Year.
UIC has faced plenty of challenges in his tenure, from managing the transfer portal and NIL in a changing college sports landscape to the move to the MVC from the Horizon League. The Flames have bettered their conference finish every season since joining in 2023, winning both the regular-season and tournament titles this year.
The success this season came after a reset in the offseason. The Flames turned over about half of their roster, and the coaching staff refocused on finding talented, high-character players who bought into Chicago, UIC and the way the coaches wanted to play. McDermott said they’ve tried to emphasize local and regional recruiting.
They worked a lot on team building in the fall — including community service projects and a team trip on public transit to see the White Sox play — but it still took a while for the pieces to fall into place. The Flames endured some early season bumps but put it together at the right time and beat Southern Illinois 7-2 on Sunday in the MVC Tournament final.
“We got off to a slow start, but what was common throughout the entire year was the connection our players had with each other,” McDermott said. “That’s what enabled us to just keep grinding through when it wasn’t so good. We were always this team, but we had to kind of figure out where all the pieces fell, and then once we figured that out, it took off. We lit on fire.”
A mix of returnees and newcomers has led the way. Returning pitchers Brandon Bak (Plainfield North) and Kendall Lyons (Warren) helped establish the culture, while returning outfielder Lucas Smith (Nazareth) sets an example with his work and intensity, McDermott said. Vidal Colon, the MVC Co-Defensive Player of the Year in his third season at UIC, is a vocal leader and versatile piece in the lineup and in the field.
Ashton Kampa, who transferred from Bryant & Stratton College, was named the MVC Newcomer of the Year. After pulling a hamstring in the fall, he struggled early in the season as he adjusted to a different speed and level of play from junior college. McDermott sat him for a couple of weeks to help him regroup.
Kampa raised his batting average from .182 in mid-March to .367 and has 16 home runs and 47 RBIs. In the MVC Tournament, he hit .364 with two home runs and six RBIs, including a three-run homer in the title game.
“He just needed a reset, to take a deep breath and relax,” McDermott said. “And holy cow, is he taking off.”
Junior right-hander Mason Lei, who will start Friday against Georgia Tech, is also in his first season at UIC after two seasons at Rock Valley Community College. He has a 3.47 ERA with 85 strikeouts and 18 walks in 93 1/3 innings. McDermott called him a blue-collar, gritty player who can go deep into games and doesn’t get rattled often.
He’ll need some poise facing a Georgia Tech team that leads the nation with a .358 batting average.
“It’s certainly a tall order for our entire team,” McDermott said. “But here’s the deal: I don’t need Mason to go out there and throw a seven-inning shutout. I need him to just shut them down one inning at a time. Let’s just take this literally one inning at a time and take really small bites, rather than looking at this monster. If we can just navigate it one inning at a time, we’ve got a chance to do something really special.”
NIU has its own challenge against a Coastal Carolina team that was the national runner-up last season to LSU. Copeland said the Chanticleers are a gritty group that likes to win with small ball. They also boast a pitching staff that includes potential first-round draft pick Cameron Flukey and closer Darin Horn.
Vaisvila, who played at Willowbrook before college stops at Loras and Wabash Valley, will get the start for the Huskies on Friday. He enters the game 8-0 with a 3.04 ERA, 85 strikeouts and 19 walks in 83 innings. He was voted first-team All-MAC one season after he went 3-5 with a 9.00 ERA.
Copeland said Vaisvila didn’t pout or whine after the rough season and instead went to work to fix some fastball and repertoire issues. He had a one-hit, seven-inning shutout against Western Michigan in the MAC Tournament and then pitched the final inning, with two strikeouts, to seal the championship against Toledo.
“He really started to build some confidence in himself,” Copeland said. “And once he did that, he just became really tough to beat. … He competes his tail off, and he can beat you in a bunch of different ways.”
Freshman right fielder Wyatt Wawro (Downers Grove South) leads the Huskies with a .374 batting average and .507 on-base percentage out of the leadoff spot. Copeland said he has some of the best bat-to-ball skills he has coached. First baseman Gavin Baldwin has a team-leading 15 home runs, including three in the MAC Tournament, and 57 RBIs and is NIU’s emotional leader.
Copeland said his team has a “really cool” opportunity ahead.
“Our guys are ready to compete,” he said. “They love to play for each other. They’re tough as nails, and we fully expect to play good baseball.
“Whatever happens, happens, but we won’t be satisfied just being here. We want to go win a regional and find a way to keep playing baseball with each other for a couple more weeks, because these guys love each other.”
