NIU baseball coach Ed Mathey said he knows his team hasn’t been playing well lately, but the second-year coach hopes it can turn it around against Bradley.

The Huskies (12-10) will host the Braves for a doubleheader beginning at 1 p.m. today at Ralph McKinzie Field, with Nathan Stillwell and Matt Steiger taking the mound for the Huskies in the two games.

NIU has lost three in a row and five of its past eight games but are 3-0 at home and 4-0 against Illinois teams this year.

“We’ve been bad in one facet of the game recently, and that seems to be the facet that always comes back to kill us,” Mathey said. “We just need to play a complete ballgame.”

Steiger will make his first start of the season in the doubleheader, while Stillwell will make his second start of the year. Stillwell brings in a 7.63 earned run average with his only other start coming against Wheaton College last Wednesday when he went seven innings, giving up two earned runs and getting the win.

Third baseman Rob Marconi has 25 career home runs, including three this season. His next home run will give him the NIU career home run mark. He is tied with Eric Welsh (1995-’97).

Offense has been a problem for NIU lately, as it has scored 11 runs in its last four games – after scoring 30 runs in two games prior.

“These guys know what they need to do,” Mathey said. “We keep pulling pitches and grounding balls to shortstop and popping balls up. We need to just maintain the approach of hitting the ball to the opposite field.”

In Game 1, Bradley will start Brandon Magee (1-0, 2.63 ERA). In Game 2, Mike Jakubowski (0-1, 6.48) will take the mound.