This afternoon at the NIU Softball Diamond, a 43-year-old softball tradition will continue.

Illinois State (18-23) will be in DeKalb to face NIU (19-19) in a doubleheader marking the 76th and 77th meetings between the two clubs.

The Redbirds lead the series 44-31 and have split their two previous meetings this season. NIU head coach Dee Abrahamson is looking forward to the match-up today.

“I think they’ll be good games,” Abrahamson said. “We lost to them down in Texas (at the Texas Tech Invitational) 7-5, and we played them in their home tournament (the Subway Classic) and won 7-3.

“We’ll need good pitching in the key spots because if you look at the scores of both games, you see that both teams are capable of scoring and getting hits.”

In the two games with ISU, the Huskies have pounded out 21 hits to ISU’s 16.

Hitting is an area the Huskies excelled in this past weekend, scoring 23 runs in four games. In winning three out of their last four games, the Huskies’ confidence seems to have risen to where Abrahamson wants it.

“I think it was important for us to start well in the conference,” Abrahamson said. “Part of it (the hitting success) was the level of competition. We (had trouble) with Iowa which is a contending team in the Midwest.

“It’s sometimes hard to get motivated to play a team like Cleveland State which is very young and is struggling just to get a team on the field.

“It’s hard to get motivated and to get to playing at peak level against those types of teams, but we needed to do just that (this past weekend).

“I think it was important for us to play well and win those games we know we’re capable of winning.”

For NIU, today’s twin bill will be a break from North Star Conference play which dominates the Huskies’ schedule most of the way from here on out.

NIU is 3-1 in conference after this weekend’s split with Akron and sweep of Cleveland State.

“It’s important for us to get to know about our conference opponents,” Abrahamson said. “We need to do that now for the conference tournament.”

But, first things first and that means the Redbirds today. The doubleheader is scheduled to begin at 3 p.m.