THE NEED TO KNOWS
St. Louis, Mo. | The Billikens Sports Center
Friday G1 - 2:00 p.m.
Friday G2 - 5:00 p.m.
Sunday - Noon
Live Stats: slubillikens.com
 
DEKALB – The NIU baseball team (2-10) will travel south for the second straight weekend, this time heading to St. Louis to take on the Billikens of Saint Louis University. The Huskies will play three games over the weekend with a double header on Friday and the series finale on Sunday.
 
Offensively, NIU has slugged a bit more as of late with five home runs in their last three games. The long balls were sent out by Joe Jumonville, Brad Wood, Jacob Dunham, Roderick Bynum and Tommy Szczasny, with each collecting their first of the season.
 
Szczasny and Dunham are coming off of a two-hit, multi-RBI game where Dunham drove in two runs and scored a pair with Szczasny driving in three runs and scoring twice himself at Iowa.
 
The Huskies will use the same starting rotation that they have used in the previous three weekends, giving the ball to William Anderson in game one, Joe Hawks in game two and Donovin Sims in the finale on Sunday.
 
Sims is coming off of a quality start against SIU-Edwardsville, throwing six innings of six-hit ball, giving up two earned runs and striking out a career high nine batters, tops for an NIU pitcher in 2017. Sims has had a good start to the season, putting a 1.07 WHIP with a seven to three strikeout to walk ratio.
 
Hawks has the lowest ERA of any Huskie pitcher with double-digit innings pitched at a 3.86, having given up six earned runs in 14 innings of work. Anderson has allowed the fewest amount of hits of the three NIU starters but walks have been an issue for him early on, giving 11 batters a free pass in 13.1 innings.
 
The Billikens will start three right-handers on the mound in Miller Hogan, Jackson Wark and Josh Garner. Hogan, the SLU ace, has thrown 18 innings, allowing one earned run on 16 hits with 18 strikeouts on the season.
 
Saint Louis' offense has five players hitting over .300 after 12 games in 2017 led by a strong .395 from infielder Carter Hanford. SLU has 13 home runs on the season with two players knocking three out of the park so far this season in shortstop Alex King and catcher James Morisano.
 
Originally scheduled as a single game on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, the two teams will now play a double header on Friday starting at 2:00 p.m. due to snow in the forecast on Saturday. HuskieBall fans can follow the team on Instagram @niu_baseball and on Twitter @NIU_Baseball.