Joe “Spanky” McFarland will pull out the season-long measuring stick when his gang travels to take on the University of Wisconsin-Madison Tuesday.

The first-year NIU baseball coach realizes that his club has won 10 of its last 15 contests, but also rationalizes that the Badgers are a Big Ten school.

“Their 11-30 record is better than our 10-23, just because they are in the Big Ten,” McFarland admitted. “Even if they are in the bottom half of the conference, they play a more difficult schedule than we do and have more experience.”

McFarland also noted another factor in the 2 p.m. doubleheader.

“Several of their guys have contacted us about coming to play down here,” McFarland said. “So that should be interesting to see what they think about us after seeing us play.”

Those that have viewed the Huskies lately, have to be impressed. After starting the 1991 campaign with 18 straight losses, NIU has turned its play up a notch. The 10-win total is one that McFarland is extremely pleased with, but welcomes a few more.

“Of all the games on the schedule this year,” McFarland said, “talent-level wise, I thought we could be competitive with 19 teams.

“Out of the 19, we won 10 and lost nine,” McFarland continued. “So we are pretty close to where we wanted to be (.500 mark).”

The Huskies still have four games left on the schedule—the deuce with the Badgers and a pair of games at Western Illinois Thursday. Obviously, Wisconsin is a big test, but so are the Leathernecks, because they are in the Mid-Continent Conference that the Huskies start competition in next season.

“Wisconsin is Big Ten and Western is in our conference,” McFarland said.”We’re going to want to win to set the tone for next season and they’re going to want to set the tone too—it’s going to be a dog fight.”

Brett Horlock and Mike Young will anchor the hill in Madison.