Like some students, the NIU baseball team will spend Spring Break soaking in the sun.

The only difference is, they will not be lounging on a beach. Instead, the Huskies will play 10 games in nine days over Spring Break in Texas.

NIU (2-3) opens up a weekend series with Texas State Friday at 6 p.m. The Bobcats (4-3) will test the Huskies, as they were ranked in the top 40 in the country for a few weeks last season.

“I anticipate them being a pretty good team,” said Ed Mathey, NIU baseball head coach. “They will be bringing a lot of right-handers to the mound, so we need to make sure our left-handers are ready to go.”

After the four-game series with TSU, the Huskies travel to San Antonio to take on Texas-San Antonio (8-2) in a double-header beginning at 1 p.m. March 11. The Roadrunners are off to their second-best start in school history, posting wins over teams such as Sacred Heart and Kansas State.

“They’re a team that swings the bat pretty well,” Mathey said. “Our pitchers are going to have a challenge. We need not only our starters, but our middle relievers to step up and they are going to get that chance next week.”

On March 12, the Huskies square off with Oklahoma at 3 p.m. The Sooners (6-2) began the season with a bang, splitting the series with No. 1 UCLA. OU lost the first game on a walk-off home run and squeezed out a 3-2 victory in 12 innings over the Bruins.

“Oklahoma is a baseball program that’s starting to get back up to the standard where they were at in the past,” Mathey said.

NIU’s trip concludes with a three-game series against Dallas Baptist (5-3). The Huskies and Patriots square off beginning March 13 at 6:30 p.m.

The Huskies look forward to getting in more action outdoors, Mathey said. There is only so much a baseball team can do with access to only indoor facilities.

Still, there are a number of things the Huskies look to improve on in the young season. Spring Break allows plenty of time to fine-tune many skills.

“Our hitting needs to stabilize,” Mathey said. “The first couple of games we were pull-happy, then we started to hit the ball to all fields and we need to continue to do that.”

The team will see where they stand after the break.

“We are going to learn a lot about ourselves next week,” Mathey said. “We are going to find out a lot about our team depth.”