While the NIU baseball team is focusing on today’s home game against Illinois State, injured pitcher Mark Badgley is not far from head coach Ed Mathey’s mind.

The Huskies (6-16) will host ISU (12-14) at 2:30 p.m. today at Ralph McKinzie Field. Left-handed freshman Matt Jernstad is scheduled to start against ISU sophomore Luke Baughman.

Badgley was struck in the head by a line drive in the second inning of a 7-6 win at Bradley on March 30. The junior right-hander sustained a skull fracture and a concussion and was rushed to Methodist Medical Center of Illinois in Peoria.

“Mark’s back at home now,” Mathey said. “He’ll undergo more tests this week and the neurologist is keeping an eye on him. At this point, it’s probably too early for him to come back.”

The McHenry-native spent his first two seasons in the bullpen and broke the NIU career-saves record in his freshman season with 14, ranked fourth nationally.

Fellow reliever freshman Brian Smith has not talked to Badgley since the injury, but has heard he is doing well.

“We’re a pretty close team,” Smith said, “so we’re hoping he’ll take as long as he needs to get healthy and hopefully join us again.”

After suffering a three-game sweep at the hands of Ball State last weekend, Mathey is stressing solid team defense.

“From our standpoint, we need to show up on defense,” Mathey said regarding the 10 errors committed by NIU over the weekend. “Those are plays that I think are routine, and we need to make those. We have to play our game before we worry about our opponents.”

With NIU junior Scott Simon still nursing a wrist injury, senior Jake Blair will be shifting to first base.

The visiting Redbirds are coming off a nine-game home stand in which they went 4-5. Their offense is led by sophomore outfielder and first baseman Matt Bolt, who sports a .330 batting average for the season and .452 over his last nine games.