Since taking over as NIU baseball coach before the 2023 season, Ryan Copeland said there’s one thing he’s heard more than anything else.

It’s impossible to win at NIU.

A trip to the NCAA Division I College World Series must count as impossible. Having won the Mid-American Conference tournament last week in their last year in the league, the Huskies will open against defending CWS runner-up Coastal Carolina.

The Huskies (35-17) are in a CWS regional for the first time since 1972, facing the Chanticleers (37-21) at 7 p.m. Friday in Tallahassee.

“I think it changes expectations and redefines the standards we have as a program,” Copeland said. “The amount of people who told you can’t win at Northern Illinois, it’s too tough of a place, I just never believed that.”

The regional is a double-elimination tournament. FSU plays St. John’s at 2 p.m. The winners play an early game Saturday, then the losers play in the late game.

The championship will be Sunday evening, with a rematch Monday if the one-loss team defeats the undefeated team.

“It’s what you dream about before you even get to college,” NIU ace Max Vaisvila said. “It’s awesome just being able to live it out my senior year, especially with this group.”

Vaisvila is 8-0 with a 3.04 ERA this year. He pitched the final inning of the Huskies’ 5-1 win over Toledo, his first relief appearance of the year, to help NIU win the MAC title before heading to the six-team Horizon League next year.

Caden Robertson has hit 14 home runs for the Huskies, second on the team, and has a .933 OPS.

“We just wanted to go somewhere with a good atmosphere and all that, and we know that place has all those things,” Robertson said. “It’s going to be a great experience and a great time.”

The Huskies went 21-33 in each of Copeland’s first two seasons. They hadn’t qualified for the MAC tournament since 2019 and last had a winning season in 2011.

The last time they finished at least 15 games above .500 was in 1972, when they reached the CWS District Tournament, going 0-2 in a field with Iowa, Bowling Green and Central Michigan.

The Seminoles are the national No. 10 seed. The winner of the Tallahassee regional advances to a super regional and will face the winner of Alabama’s Regional, which features the No. 7 Crimson Tide, Alabama State, Oklahoma State and USC Upstate.

The eight super regional winners head to the College World Series.

“The excitement going on within our program, the support, the alumni, our families, the tailgates on the road, it’s just so special,” Copeland said. “We’ll always remind our guys to make sure to be where their feet are and to enjoy it. But we believe in ourselves. We think we’re pretty dang good and we’re very confident going into Tallahassee.”