One week ago today, the NIU baseball team defeated intrastate rival Illinois State 8-6 under cold and windy conditions at Ralph McKinzie Field in DeKalb.

The Huskies will try to make it a clean sweep as they play the Redbirds at 6 p.m. this evening in Normal, Ill.

NIU (17-10) is coming off an impressive weekend road series in which it took two of three from Kent State in a series where the temperature never went above 30 degrees.

With that in mind, NIU coach Ed Mathey knows he will have some tired bodies out there, considering his team didn’t get back to DeKalb until after 2 a.m. Monday morning.

“That’s just the way the schedule is,” Mathey said. “We don’t have practice time to work on things, so we need to take advantage of batting practice before the game.”

With NIU consistently battling ISU (14-15) in the recruiting war, winning the intrastate battle is a point of pride. The Huskies have defended their home field well against the Redbirds. But it’s when the team has to go down to Normal that it seems to struggle as NIU hasn’t fared too well when playing ISU on the road.

“It’s a place where we haven’t had the success we wanted,” Mathey said. “It’s a good healthy rivalry and I see that continuing.”

Despite a weekend series with MAC East-leading Miami-Ohio looming, MAC Player of the Week and Huskie freshman Jordin Hood knows not to overlook the game against ISU.

“It’ll be good preparation for us,” Hood said. “We’ll definitely take it seriously and go from there.”