DEKALB – The NIU baseball team (14-29, 8-7 MAC) will travel to Mount Pleasant, Mich. to face Central Michigan (23-20, 11-4 MAC) for a three-game series starting Friday. The Huskies will play on the road in conference for the first time in about a month when they played Buffalo on April 8 and 9.
The Huskies are coming off of back-to-back two-win weekends after winning the last two games against Ball State last weekend and sweeping both games in Evansville two weeks ago. They have taken at least a game in every conference series this season but look to win the series against the Mid-American Conference West leading Chippewas.
After a midseason slump, NIU center fielder
Roderick Bynum has warmed up at the plate, hitting .455 in his last seven games going 10-22 and adding five walks for a .556 on base percentage. Senior outfielder
Jason Gasser and junior catcher
Mike Roberson have been adding good offense in part time roles with each getting four starts over seven games, Gasser has hit .333 in that stretch with Roberson on a current six-game hitting streak.
The Huskies will once again turn to the starting pitching duo of
Joe Hawks and
Nathan Thomas for the first two games of the series with game three's starter in question after
Donovin Sims left his start last weekend after four pitches due to an oblique injury.
Both Hawks and Thomas use the strikeout to their advantage as Hawks is currently tied for third in the MAC with 60 strikeouts and has 8.5 strikeouts per nine innings, while Thomas as struck out 32 batters in 38.2 innings for 7.4 strikeouts per nine innings. NIU pitchers would like to limit the walks they've allowed this season as they have allowed five and a half walks per nine innings as a team this season.
Central Michigan has used three pitchers for double-digit starts this season in Tyler Hankins, Pat Leatherman and Dazon Cole. Hankins leads the way for CMU's staff with a 4-1 record and a 4.05 ERA in ten starts and 66.2 innings while Leatherman leads the way in strikeouts with 56, tied for fifth in the MAC.
Offensively, the Chippewas are hitting .282 as a team, which is good enough for third best in the MAC. Four players are over the .300-mark in Daniel Robinson (.324), Daniel Jipping (.308), Robert Greenman (.305), and Alex Borglin (.303) all with 40 or more games play with Jipping providing the power with 10 home runs, tied for first in the MAC and 47 RBIs, tied for second in the MAC.
The Huskies could make a big jump in the MAC standings with only two weekends left to play after this week. The top-four teams in the standings playing each other this weekend as third place Eastern Michigan is taking on MAC leading Kent State with NIU in the four-spot and CMU in second place. NIU will host Eastern Michigan next weekend for a three-game series that will be NIU's finals home games of the 2017 season.
