With baseball still looking to earn its first win of the season, it will try its luck in a three-game weekend series against Southern Illinois in Marion.

The Huskies (0-6-1) have struggled to find their rhythm on the mound and at the plate in their first two weekends of play.

In their first seven games this season, the Huskies’ starting pitching has been their biggest issue. They have not lasted deep into ball games, with only three starts this season resulting in the starter pitching five or more innings. Eli Anderson and Alex Klonowski have each pitched 11.1 innings in their two starts this season to lead the Huskies in innings pitched.

“First and foremost we have to get a consistent approach from our starting rotation,” said coach Ed Mathey. “Our starting pitchers have to go a little bit deeper than what they did over the weekend… . When our starters don’t go deep, the game can kind of get away from you a little bit and we saw a couple of those things happen.”

At the plate, the Huskies have struggled to put runs up on the board. In the Huskies’ first game against Missouri State Friday they were shut out until they scored eight runs in the bottom of the ninth inning. They were then shut out in back-to-back games against New Mexico and Missouri State.

The Huskies are getting runners on base but are not able to drive them in as they have left 58 runners on base this season.

“Offensively, we need to avoid shutouts,” Mathey said. “You need to be able to score some runs. You have to be able to manufacture some runs somewhere along the way, and in all of those games we had very legitimate chances to do that, even in the tie ball game I think we left 14 guys on base, so if we can maximize our run productions on the offensive side that’s going to go hand in hand with the pitching, and I think we’ll start to see results.”

As for the SIU Salukis (5-2), they come into their matchup with the Huskies on a four-game winning streak. They have been led at the plate this season by outfielder Donny Duschinsky, who leads the team with three home runs and nine RBIs.

“It’s a great test early in the season to get our guys ready for what we’re going to see in MAC play,” Mathey said. “In general, Southern is a good program; they’ve had a good tradition. They tend to pitch the ball well with coach [Ken] Henderson, their team’s going to compete, it’s going to be a good test for us to go down there and try to get some momentum going on our side this early in the season.”