April 2, 2007
NORMAL, Ill. -
With a weekend sweep of Missouri Valley Conference foe Missouri State under its belt, the Illinois State baseball team (12-13, 3-3 MVC) returns to action on Tuesday when it travels north to DeKalb, Ill., to take on in-state rival Northern Illinois (14-9, 5-1 MAC) in a mid-week showdown. First pitch is scheduled for 2:30 p.m. at Ralph McKinzie Field.
Northern Illinois heads into the series after a weekend series win over Mid-American Conference member Akron, and are currently 3-0 at home. In 2006, ISU and NIU split a home-and-home series, with each team winning on its home field. This season, the teams will do the same as the Huskies will travel to Redbird Field on April 10 for the second game of the series.
Illinois State head coach Jim Brownlee hopes his team can pitch better than it did in last week's mid-week contest with Iowa, a 15-3 defeat.
"I'm just looking for our pitching to step up and throw well for us tomorrow," said Brownlee. "Our mid-week guys really struggled last week against Iowa and they need to rebound against Northern Illinois. The games we've played in the past with NIU have always been competitive, and we will need quality work in the middle of the diamond to come away with a victory."
Sophomore Dan Sorce (1-3, 9.00 ERA) will be the one to set the tone for the Redbirds, as he will start his third game on the mound this season. Sorce was the starter against Iowa last week and struggled, giving up four runs in two innings of work.
Brownlee knows that Sorce will have to be the one to lead the way against NIU, but he's confident his left-hander will respond with a strong outing.
"Sorce will have to set the tone and give us some quality innings," said Brownlee. "We've seen what Dan can do in the past and how effective he can be as long as he's in control. When he starts walking people, like he did against Iowa, it's hard to work out of a hole like that. But, with our offense back on track, I think we have a good shot of getting back to .500 in the win-loss column."
