The Illinois State baseball team will take a weekend off from Missouri Valley Conference play this weekend as they head to Chicago to take on the University of Illinois-Chicago Flames in a three-game series.
The Redbirds have lost ten of their last 12 and are not moving in the right direction according to head coach Jim Brownlee.
Our team is moving backwards right now and thats something that you hope never happens, said Brownlee, now in his second season at ISU. Were a very young team and were struggling. Our young guys have never been through this before and you just have to keep working to get yourself out of it.
Illinois State (11-21, 5-11) will enter Les Miller Field with a bitter taste in its mouth after they fell to crosstown rival Illinois Wesleyan on Wednesday night.
Were coming off our worst loss and performance of the year, so I hope we can right the ship this weekend, said Brownlee. Its so frustrating because we played so well on Sunday at Creighton (a 9-7 loss in 14 innings) and we came out with no enthusiasm at all against Wesleyan.
Illinois State will send junior Kyle Bloom (2-5) to the mound on Friday night to try and stop the skid. In Blooms last three outings, he has struck out 18, while allowing opponents to only hit .203. Josh Kauten (0-4) will start on Saturday and Kyle Zaleski (2-0) will start on Sunday.
Friday nights game begins at 7:05 p.m., while Saturday and Sunday are 1:00 p.m. starts.
Weve got five more non-conference games before we head back into Valley play, so we need to get things turned around by then, Brownlee said. UIC is playing well, so it should be a good weekend.
The games against UIC (23-11) will not be broadcast, however fans will be able to follow along using Gametracker via www.redbirds.org.
