EVANSVILLE, Ind. - The University of Northern Iowa baseball team guaranteed itself a series victory with an 8-3 road win over Evansville on Saturday.

The Panthers (10-12, 2-3 MVC) will get a chance to improve to .500 in the Missouri Valley Conference with a victory in today's 1 p.m. series finale.

Brett Douglas paced UNI's offense Saturday by going 3-for-5 with two RBIs and a home run. Cory Ege and Travis Bennett also tallied three hits for the Panthers.

UNI starting pitcher Derek Ott (1-2) surrendered three runs and struck out five through five innings to earn the win. Reliever Zach Zirbel pitched three scoreless innings and allowed just one hit with six strikeouts before Shuhei Fujiya closed it out.

UNI got on the board early and never trailed en route to its second win over the Purple Aces in as many days. The Panthers' Deric Manrique drew a leadoff walk and later scored on a two-out single up the middle by Travis Bennett in the top of the first inning.

Northern Iowa added a run in the top of the second inning when Grant Grgurich bunted to score Jeff Taliaferro from third. After Evansville (8-14, 1-4) cut the deficit to 2-1 in the bottom of the second, UNI retaliated with a Douglas solo home run in the fourth inning and a fifth-inning RBI single by Levi Ferguson.

Evansville loaded the bases with none out in the bottom of the fifth, but Ott induced Andy Smith to ground into a doubleplay, scoring Greg Wallace. Another run scored on Peter Tountas' RBI double before Ott got a fly out to end the inning.

Leading by one, Douglas delivered an RBI single in the top of the seventh for an insurance run before UNI broke the game open with three runs in the top of the ninth.

The Panthers out hit Evansville 16-9. UNI left 14 men on base and the Aces stranded 10 runners.

Northern Iowa 110 110 103 - 8 16 0

Evansville 010 020 000 - 3 9 2

Derek Ott, Zach Zirbel (6), Shuhei Fujiya (9) and Jeff Taliaferro. John Foley, Tom Heithoff (6), Cory Davisson (8), J.R. Carbonell (8), Zach Taylor (9), Dan Holcomb (9) and Andrew Gher, Andy Pascoe. WP - Ott (1-2). LP - Foley (2-1). HR - Brett Douglas (2).

MVC standings

Conf. Overall

W L W L

Missouri State 3 0 11 11

Wichita State 1 0 13 10

Creighton 4 1 10 14

Illinois State 3 1 11 7

Southern Illinois 3 2 11 15

Northern Iowa 2 3 10 12

Indiana State 1 3 14 10

Evansville 1 4 8 14

Bradley 0 4 6 13

SATURDAY'S RESULTS

Northern Iowa 8, Evansville 3

Creighton 4-4, Southern Illinois 3-3

Indiana St. at Illinois St., ppd.

Wichita St. at Bradley, ppd.

Missouri St. at Oral Roberts, ppd.