It hasn’t been the easiest 48 hours for the NIU baseball team.

And it’s not going to get any easier.

The Huskies start a three-game series against MAC-leading Ball State at 2 p.m. today at Ralph McKinzie Field.

The past two days have been as long as they come, NIU coach Ed Mathey said.

On Tuesday, Mathey watched his team battle Northern Iowa for 15 innings only to lose on a controversial triple play.

The team then turned around the next day for a double header against Bradley.

Any worries about the prior days’ loss were wiped away when NIU pitcher Mark Badgley was hit in the face by a line drive in the second inning of the first game.

Badgley was taken by ambulance to Methodist Medical Center of Illinois in Peoria where he was found to have a skull fracture and a concussion.

By the time the team had started to regroup, they had to take cover. The game was delayed one hour and 58 minutes when a tornado touched down 20 minutes East of the field in Metamora. The weather caused the second game to be canceled.

“This team has been through a lot,” Mathey said. “The one gratifying thing is that these kids keep coming in and working hard. They are true winners.”

One of the things that gave Mathey hope for this weekend’s series was the way his team reacted to the events that occurred.

NIU was able to rally together and pull out a win against Bradley in the first game.

“It has been hard, but we have pulled it together,” NIU pitcher Brian Smith said. “We have to keep playing and not dwell on what’s happened.”

Smith and the rest of the Huskie pitchers will have to be focused on the task of shutting down BSU’s hitters. The Cardinals are third in the MAC with a .288 batting average and fourth in runs scored.

NIU will try to combat offense with offense. The Huskies have 11 players batting .300 or better and are currently second in the MAC with a .300 team batting average.