For the NIU baseball team, there’s no place like home.

The NIU baseball team has used a 10-4 mark at Ralph McKinzie Field to propel its march toward a .500 record.

A win in today’s 3 p.m. showdown with Illinois-Chicago would put NIU at the break-even point.

“We anticipate this game will be a definite battle,” NIU coach Ed Mathey said. “We never quite recovered from our West Coast trip that put us behind the proverbial eight ball. We want to win bad to get back to .500.”

A potent UIC (21-14, 13-4 Horizon League) squad arrives with a .298 team batting average and Bart Babineaux. The senior outfielder has pounded 14 home runs, collected 44 RBIs and hit for a .352 average.

“UIC has been their league champs for the last three years,” Mathey said. “They’ve been to the NCAA tournament twice in the last three years. UIC has made a huge commitment to their baseball program in the last few years.”

NIU (19-20 overall, 8-7 MAC) is riding high with a 5-1 mark in its last six games. Mathey’s squad took two of three games from MAC West leader Central Michigan.

“As good as we feel right now, we understand we are in the middle of a race,” Mathey said. We will have plenty of time at the end of the season to pat ourselves on the back and be critical, right now; we’ve still got work to do.”

Third baseman Jesse Seykora had a huge weekend with two home runs and seven RBIs. The junior transfer student from North Iowa Area Community College has assumed the team lead with six homers and 31 RBIs.

With a .297 batting average, Seykora is on the verge of joining a trio of NIU regulars, Brian Toner (.362), Scott Simon (.351) and Jeff Thomas (.333) with a .300 average or better.