Baseball | March 23

DeKALB, IL - The Northern Illinois University baseball team plays its first games of the season at Ralph McKinzie Field at Walt and Janice Owens Park this weekend when it hosts the Ohio Bobcats for a three-game series beginning Friday at 3 p.m. CT. First pitch on Saturday, March 25 is at 1 p.m. with a 12 p.m. first pitch on Sunday.
 
The field has been renamed to Ralph McKinzie Field at Walt and Janice Owens Park to honor the late NIU baseball coach. Janice Owens will throw out the first pitch prior to Friday's game. A formal dedication of the field will take place on Sunday, April 16 when the Huskies host Western Michigan.
 
Fans will get their first look at the newly-installed artificial turf infield which was put in this past fall. The turf infield is one of four phases to enhance the NIU baseball facility.
 
"We're really excited to open up on our new field," said head coach Mike Kunigonis at Tuesday's NIU Athletics spring press conference. "We've had a lot of people work extremely hard to make this dream come to fruition. NIU Baseball has been working hard for a number of years to update its facilities and make sure our student-athletes get the best of the best."
 
NIU (4-15, 1-5 MAC) earned its first conference win last Sunday in a 4-2 win over the Miami RedHawks to take the series finale. Pitchers Brandon McPherson (Chicago, Ill./Wabash Valley College) and Jacob Wilde (Wauwatosa, Wis./Madison College) combined for 11 strikeouts in the victory. Junior First Baseman Andrew Smart (Evanston, Ill./Oakton CC) was 2-for-4 at the plate and scored two runs as Malik Peters (Calumet City, Ill./Mount Carmel) had a pair of runs batted in.
 
Junior Colin Summerhill (Chicago, Ill./Troy) leads NIU with a .310 batting average, .465 slugging percentage, two home runs and 13 RBI. Smart and Aaron Harper (Hemet, Calif./Mt. San Jacinto College) also have 13 RBI so far this season.  
 
"We finished up strong last weekend with a win at Miami," Kunigionis said. "It's nice to finally be home after being on the road the last five weeks. We're looking to have a great weekend and bring in the new ballpark with a bang and a series victory over Ohio."
 
Ohio (5-13, 3-3 MAC) took a game from defending Mid-American Conference champions Central Michigan last weekend out of three, moving to .500 in league play. The Bobcats are third in the MAC with a team batting average of .294 and fourth in runs scored. Junior Cole Williams in sixth in the MAC in batting average, hitting .393 so far this season.
 
Each game this weekend will be shown on NIUTube on NIUHuskies.com, the Huskie all-access channel. Subscriptions are available for purchase on a daily ($6.95), monthly ($10.95) or annual basis and provides access to all home NIU Athletics events streamed on the website for the purchase period.
 
--NIU--