DeKALB, Ill. – The Ball State baseball team rode a big offensive performance from Hunter Dobbins and lockdown relief pitching by Nate Blain to a 13-10 win at Northern Illinois on Sunday afternoon at Ralph McKinzie Field.

The Cardinals (27-19-1, 14-10 Mid-American Conference) got out to a 4-0 advantage after an early homer barrage with Dobbins drilling a two-run shot in the first inning and Dylan Grego and Michael Hallquist going deep in the second and third, respectively, for the edge.

Northern Illinois (16-31, 10-14 MAC) responded with a trio of tallies in the bottom half of the third inning, but the visitors rallied to put five runs on the board in the fourth to rebuild a 9-3 edge. Clay Jacobs hit an RBI triple to get the scoring going before an RBI single from Nick Gregory and a three-run homer by Dobbins to cap it off.

The host Huskies put together a seven-run rally of their own in the bottom of the fourth to take their only lead of the game at 10-9. Blain came in to finish the inning and allowed only one hit and no walks in his final five frames of work to earn his second win of the weekend.

Ball State scored twice in the sixth on a Dobbins sac fly and RBI fielder's choice off the bat of Blake Bevis to go ahead 11-10. Decker Scheffler worked a pair of sac flies, one in the seventh and one in the ninth, for insurance runs.

Blain improved to 2-4 with the win and struck out seven while allowing three runs (none earned) in 6.0 innings. For the week, the right-hander tossed 9.2 innings without allowing an earned run.

Dobbins went 2-for-5 at the dish with the pair of home runs and a career-high six RBI in his fifth career multi-homer game (third this year). A total of seven Cardinals scored runs and seven Cardinals drove in runs to power the team to their fifth straight MAC series win.

"Nate Blain put our team on his back," head coach Rich Maloney said. "Hunter Dobbins had a big day offensively and defensively. Our boys stayed the course through some adversity to win the series."

Ball State returns to Muncie to host Butler at 3 p.m. on Tuesday and begin a five-game homestand.