DEKALB – The NIU baseball team (12-27, 6-6 MAC) will head back to Mid-American Conference play this weekend as they host Ball State (21-20, 8-7 MAC) for a three-game weekend series at Ralph McKinzie Field starting this Friday at noon.
 
Friday's game will start earlier than its originally scheduled 3:05 p.m. CT first pitch due to this weekend's weather forecast. With the earlier start time on Friday, the two teams may decide to play a second game on Friday with Saturday and Sunday's forecast not looking favorable for baseball.
 
The Huskies are coming off of three-straight low scoring, tightly contested ballgames with a pair of wins in Evansville by scores of 5-2 and 1-0 then dropping their midweek game 3-2 to Minnesota this past Tuesday at the Ralph. They relied on seven pitchers in those tight games, and it may remain that way in conference play as those are the top seven in terms of innings pitched for the NIU staff.
 
Starters Joe Hawks, Nathan Thomas and Donovin Sims got the last three starts with Hawks and Sims pitching against Evansville with Thomas getting three innings in the start against Minnesota since one game was rained out over the weekend. Those three will start in the series against Ball State as each lowered their ERA in their last start with Hawks leading the way at 3.20, Sims not far behind at 3.68 and Thomas also down to 4.81.
 
Out of the pen, NIU has turned to four relief pitchers in tight situations for weekend games as of late. Righties William Anderson, Andrew Frankenreider and Ryne Blanton along with lefty George Faue got all of the workload in the past three games. Blanton and Frankenreider each earned a save at Evansville with Faue and Anderson working as middle relief or long relief.
 
Ball State will turn to one lefty and two righties this weekend against the Huskies in LHP Kevin Marnon on Friday, RHP John Baker on Saturday and RHP Brendan Burns on Sunday. Baker has the best ERA (2.53) and WHIP (1.17) of the three Cardinals and Burns has the least amount of innings pitched with 27.1 innings in only two starts but 10 appearances.
 
The Cardinals offense is lead by a pair of seniors in second baseman Sean Kennedy and center fielder Matt Eppers who have started all 41 games Ball State has played this year. Kennedy is hitting .340 on the year with eight home runs and 38 RBIs while Eppers is not far behind in average at .338 with five triples and only one home run.
 
With rain in the forecast for all three days of this weekend's series, keep an eye on the baseball page of niuhuskies.com and on Twitter @NIU_Baseball. Announcements will be made as soon as they are official. If no announcement is made, the games will proceed as scheduled.