As the baseball season comes to a close, coach Dave Schrage believes every game now will be critical.

This afternoon begins the final stretch of 10 games for the Huskies, who will need to play their best baseball right now if they want to make the Mid-American Conference Tournament. They sit 22-23 overall and are 5-14 in the conference, with eight conference games remaining.

Today, NIU will travel to Normal to take on Illinois State at a 4 p.m. meeting. The Huskies will then return home for a game with Valparaiso at McKinzie Field on Wednesday. These are the last two non-conference games for the Huskies this season. They are 17-9 in these games, compared to 5-14 in the conference.

“We got two big ball games this week,” Schrage said. “We have to face a tough club in Illinois State and Valparaiso, who has been beating everyone lately.”

If NIU wants to make the conference tournament, they are going to have to have consistent pitching, good defense and timely hitting, all of which they displayed in the last two games against Toledo.

The outfield tandem of Noel Danielson, Dan Urban and Pat Kerrigan combined for 27 hits, 21 RBI and 20 runs scored this past weekend, and NIU will need to see the same out of all three in the remaining 10 games.

Over the weekend, Kerrigan drove in his 46th and 47th runs, giving him the new NIU single season RBI mark.

“We hit the ball well this weekend and should have won three out of four, which is what we needed,” Danielson said. “We won the last two, though, so hopefully, that will give us some momentum going to Illinois State.”