CHICAGO, Ill. -- UIC begins a four-game road trip, and a stretch when it will play seven of eight games away from Granderson Stadium, at Northern Illinois on Tuesday, April 10. First pitch in the third of three nonconference game between the two foes is set for 3 p.m. CT.

The Flames (16-12) split two games with the Huskies (9-20) in Chicago last month. UIC hit five doubles, four home runs and plated a season-high 18 runs as is cruised to an 18-3 victory in the first matchup on March 14. Alex Dee belted two home runs and drove in seven runs that afternoon for the Flames, while Joshua Figueroa and Ryan Lin-Peistrup each notched a career-best four hits.

NIU exacted a measure of revenge in its second trip east on Interstate 88, winning 5-1 on March 27. David Becker paced the club with two hits in defeat and he drove in the only run for UIC with a second-inning single that scored Bowen Ogata.

Lin-Peistrup is batting .625 with five hits in eight at-bats against Northern Illinois this season. He is one of four Flames with at least three RBI, joining Dee (7), Figueroa (3) and Dominic Smith (3). Newcomer Braeden Toikka has started the first two games this season against the Huskies. He is 1-1, having allowed only one earned run over 9.0 innings of work. He has fanned eight and NIU is batting only .152 against him.

Redshirt junior Nick Oliff is scheduled to make his first career start on the mound for UIC. He has appeared in three games out of the bullpen in 2018, providing 4.1 innings of relief. His last appearance came on Saturday, April 7, when he threw an inning in the second game of a doubleheader against Wright State.

The last time the Flames played at Ralph McKinzie Field, the squad pounded out 17 runs en route to a 14-run win on April 11, 2017. Horizon League Player of the Year Rob Calabrese homered twice, had a career-high five hits and drove in eight runs for UIC. Calabrese was drafted in the 10^th round by the San Francisco Giants in June and is currently playing for the Augusta GreenJackets, a Class A team in the South Atlantic League.

The Flames will dive back into Horizon League play over the weekend with a three-game series at Milwaukee (10-17, 6-6 Horizon League), April 13-15.