After spending almost two weeks at his home in McHenry, NIU pitcher Mark Badgley returned to class Monday.

The junior right-hander was struck in the head by a line drive March 30 in a game against Bradley, sustaining a skull fracture and concussion.

“That’s a good sign,” said head coach Ed Mathey on Badgley’s return to NIU. “But baseball-wise, we won’t see him for a few weeks. He’s still seeing the doctor, and I would be very surprised if he comes back this year.”

Redbird rematch

After a 6-4 Huskies victory over Illinois State last week at Ralph McKenzie Field in DeKalb, the Redbirds will have a shot at revenge today at 6 p.m. today in Bloomington.

The Huskies travel south to ISU and are expected to start Brandon Hodge for the first time since his April 2 start against Ball State.

Young guns

With a 2.25 ERA, NIU freshman pitcher Adam Holdenrid has the third-best pitching average in the MAC.

The left-hander is one of nine underclassmen in the top 10 in ERA. Western Michigan junior Mark Rasmussen, who gave up two runs in seven innings against the Huskies on Friday, is the only upperclassman in the top 10 in ERA.

Each of the pitchers in the top five are either freshmen or sophomores, led by John Ely from Miami-Ohio.

“A lot of that is because there was such a good senior class of pitchers last season,” Mathey said, “but it’s also because the MAC has been able to attract better pitching out of high school.”

Fielding woes

Of the MAC’s 13 teams, NIU sits last with a fielding percentage of .931.

Mathey was happy with the improvement he saw from his team last week against Eastern Illinois and Illinois State. In those two games, the Huskies committed a combined three errors.

But the problem resurfaced last weekend against WMU, Mathey said. NIU committed four errors Sunday in a 16-5 loss to WMU.

“This weekend, we took a step back defensively,” Mathey said. “We need to focus on the basic fundamentals. We’re going to take special time during batting practice to work on some of those things.”

Practice makes perfect

The Huskies have played eight games in the last eight days and have two road matches this week, leaving little time for practice.

The last official team practice was March 31.

“It’s difficult to work some things out right now when you don’t have a chance to work with the guys,” Mathey said.

Smith’s trip around the diamond

First Brian Smith was a starting pitcher, then a closer, and now he’s taking on first base and middle-relief as well, completing the circle.

Last week, Smith started at first base but also started in Sunday’s loss to WMU.

“As of now, we’re still doing our closer by committee,” Mathey said. “But we’d also like to get some middle-relief outings from Brian during the week.”

Pushed by Busch

Midway through the season, NIU center fielder Jeremy Busch is leading the Huskies offense in several statistical categories.

The center fielder is third in the MAC home run race with six, fourth in runs scored and sixth in walks.

Simon says

Since straining his wrist in mid March, Scott Simon has been out of the lineup with the exception of pinch hits.

Mathey said Monday that he hoped to get Simon back into the lineup by the weekend, and that the slugger had not seen hitting time for fear that he could reaggravate the injury.

Simon led the MAC last season with 71 RBIs and had an eighth-best .374 batting average.