This weekend, we hosted Northern Illinois University. They were 5-1 in league play, which was good enough for first place. The Huskies were leading the league in batting average and stolen bases. They are a very good team, and we had to be ready to play our best baseball.
 
Friday games have seemed to be a struggle for us. We have yet to win a Friday game in the last two weeks. This Friday was no different. Our starting pitcher (Evan Smith) once again pitched a great game, but our offense could not provide him with any runs. Not only did we lose the game, but we also were on a four-game slide, and things were not looking good.
 
I woke up Saturday morning to snow flurries and a temperature of 32 degrees. I thought for sure that our game would be canceled. Well to my surprise, and I think the other team’s surprise, we started the game. We played one inning of baseball before a large amount of snow fell from the sky and covered our field. The game was suspended and would start up again at noon on Easter Sunday.
 
On Sunday, we were slated to play a doubleheader. It was in the high 20s, with wind and snow flurries. This was not my idea of baseball weather. But we played through it. The first game of the doubleheader, we lost 11-9. We had the lead late but we had one bad inning that allowed them to come back on us. It seems that we have had one bad inning in each of our last five games that eventually has cost us the win.
 
After the game we went inside to our clubhouse to get warm and get something to eat. We were all really down about the game, but Coach Stricklin came in and told us to put the game behind us and get ready to play the final game of the series. We started the second game around 3, by this time the temperature had dropped and the wind had picked up, the day was not getting any better. But we jumped out to an early lead and kept scoring the whole game. It turned out to be one of our most complete games of the year. We finally pitched well, hit well and played good defense all in the same game. The final score was 7-2; we ended the miserable weekend on the right note.
 
This coming weekend, we are gong to Ball State. It is going to be a big series for us, not only to get back in the race in the MAC , but because they beat us on our home field in the MAC championship game.

Brad Winter

(photo courtesy of Kent State Media Relations Office)