CHICAGO -- The UIC baseball team gets set for its second to last weekend of the regular season this weekend with a pair of doubleheaders. The Flames will play host to Youngstown State for two games on Friday, May 13 before traveling to take on Oakland for a pair on Sunday (May 15).
FIRST PITCH
• Friday will serve as Senior Day, with the program honoring its graduating class at the conclusion of Game 2 against the Penguins.
• Redshirt freshman
Breck Nowik was named the Horizon League Batter of the Week on Tuesday after hitting .611/.650/.833 with seven RBI in a five-game week. Nowik had at least one hit in every game while adding a double and home run.
• The Flames have a pair that rank inside the top-10 in the Horizon League in hitting as
Bryan Rosario ranks fifth overall with a .340 batting average while
Breck Nowik is seventh, and first among freshmen, at .326.
• The 21 runs scored by UIC over Purdue Fort Wayne on May 1 are the most runs scored by any Horizon League team in any game this year while the seven doubles in the contest also rank as the highest single-game output by a League team this year.
1-2 PUNCH
• The tandem of
Nate Peterson and
Tyler Ingram have excelled at the top of UIC's rotation.
• Ingram ranks third among Horizon League starters with a 3.53 ERA while Peterson ranks fourth with a 3.91 earned run average.
• Peterson ranks first among all Horizon League pitchers with 79 strikeouts on the year and second with a 4.65 strikeout-to-walk ratio.
• Another starter for the Flames,
Cristian Lopez, has a team-leading five wins on the season, tied for the most in the Horizon League.
• UIC's team ERA of 5.13 is tops in the Horizon League. UIC's opponent on Friday, Youngstown State, is second with a .548 ERA.
B1G WINS
• The Flames improved to 3-1 against Big Ten teams this year with a 13-0 win over Northwestern in seven innings on May 4.
• Earlier this year, UIC picked up a road win against Purdue (10-9) before returning home and taking down the Boilermakers by a 9-6 score on April 19.
• The Flames' lone defeat was at Northwestern on April 5. Since that game, UIC has going 11-3 in its last 14 games.
• UIC has one more Big Ten opponent on the schedule, hosting Iowa on May 17.
FLAMES HEAT UP
• The Flames have begun to heat up, entering the home stretch of the season having won 13 of its last 17 contests.
• The Flames have outscored its opponents 132-74 over the stretch, averaging 7.8 runs per game while limiting teams to 4-4 runs per contest.
• UIC is hitting .316 as a team during the stretch while limiting opponents to just a .257 batting average. The pitching staff has a combined ERA of 3.81 while opposing pitchers have combined for a 7.54 ERA.
