DEKALB – The NIU baseball team (14-28, 8-7 MAC) heads into the final month of the regular season with their midweek matchup against Valparaiso (17-27, 7-12 Horizon).
UPDATE: This game has been pushed back to Wednesday due to field conditions in Valparaiso with a first pitch scheduled for 3:00 p.m. CT.
Both teams will turn to freshmen to start on the mound on Tuesday, as the Huskies will throw RHP
Blake Walker and the Crusaders starting LHP Michael Mommersteeg. Walker will be making his second start of the season with a 2.70 ERA in 13.1 innings on the year. Mommersteeg has started more often for Valparaiso with six starts and 27.1 innings with a 2.96 ERA.
The Huskies finished April with the same amount of wins at 6-11 as they had in the month of March at 6-12. April was the best month for the ERA of NIU pitchers as they finished the month with a 4.77 ERA and had ten more strikeouts (96) as they did walks (86) in the month.
NIU is coming off of winning four of their last six games, earning two wins each of the last two weekends, first against Evansville and then winning their three-game series against Ball State last weekend. The Huskies find themselves in fourth place in the Mid-American Conference standings after their series win over Ball State and are now a game behind Eastern Michigan for third place and three games behind Central Michigan for second place.
Saturday's game was an 11-8 win for the Huskies in a rain-shortened game after six and a half innings after NIU trailed 5-1 and scored six runs in the fifth to take the lead. Their other win came in Friday's second game of a doubleheader behind back-to-back home runs in the fifth inning from
Tommy Hook's three-run shot and
Tommy Szczasny's solo home run and a four-inning save by
George Faue.
Valparaiso is coming off of a win in their last game against Horizon League opponent Youngstown State but dropped that series two games to one last weekend. The Crusaders are led offensively by infielder Sam Shaikin, who is hitting .333 on the season in 42 starts. Infielder Nate Palace leads the team in the home run category with eight on the year and also has 27 RBIs, good for second on the team.
After this midweek game, NIU will head to Mount Pleasant, Mich. to face Central Michigan in a three-game series then they will return home for a weekend series against Eastern Michigan a week later, the two teams they are directly behind in the MAC standings. HuskieBall fans can follow the team on Twitter @NIU_Baseball and on Instagram @niu_baseball.
