Six teams make the MAC Tournament for baseball. With 11 games remaining, NIU is barely in, if the season ended today.

The Huskies stand at 26-18 overall and 9-7 in the MAC, which is a half game ahead of Akron, who is on the outside looking in with a 10-9 MAC record.

Junior right fielder Mike Santoro broke the NIU single-season home run record with 13. He broke the mark in Game 1 of Saturday’s doubleheader against IUPU-Fort Wayne. There still are 11 games remaining before the start of the MAC Tournament.

A home series with Buffalo and Central Michigan before the end of the regular season in two weeks could help the Huskies as both teams are under the .500 mark.

The Huskies will make a trip to Ypsilanti, Mich., next weekend to take on Eastern Michigan (11-7 MAC) for four games.

All three teams left on the conference schedule for NIU have an ERA of 5.39 or higher and have a lower batting average than the Huskies.

“It’s going to come down to how the rest of the league plays out,” NIU coach Ed Mathey said. “The last road trip we were on didn’t work out how we would’ve wanted to, but Eastern is going to be big for us this coming weekend.”

NIU will depend on its pitching to clinch a spot in the MAC Tournament as the team’s 4.47 earned run average is second in conference.

The Huskies haven’t had a problem hitting the baseball this season hitting .307, which is fourth in the league.

Right fielder Mike Santoro has provided the power for the Huskies as he is now the single-season record holder with 13 home runs. Santoro blasted his record-breaking 13th homer in Game 1 of Saturday’s doubleheader with IUPU-Fort Wayne.

“Mike’s done a great job for us this year,” Mathey said. “He’s settled in to the fifth spot quite nicely and his quality of at-bats has started to improve.”

However, the one downfall for NIU to make the tournament is that they have committed a MAC-worst 87 errors and have just a .941 fielding percentage.