The Panthers take on the Huskies on Tuesday in Coaches’ Stadium after a weekend absence away from home to Morehead.

Eastern (11-16, 1-2) will play Northern Illinois (15-9) at 3 p.m in a non-conference game.

In 2002 Eastern played a tight game against Northern but was able to pull away with a 9-8 victory.

The Huskies hired a new coach this year, Ed Mathey. He has been able to lead the Huskies to 15 wins thus far this season.

Mathey and Northern were scheduled to play a doubleheader against the University at Buffalo, but both games were canceled due to the freezing weather.

Mathey said the weekend was a tough weekend.

“When you are playing pretty well, and we have been, you want to keep playing. We had some pretty good practices that may help out,” Schmitz said. “But you can’t beat playing.”

Mathey said he and his team really respect Eastern’s program and what Schmitz has done.

“Eastern is a pretty good club, and they play in a very tough conference,” Mathey said.

“Last year Eastern beat Northern, so hopefully the players will be pretty motivated to beat them. Eastern are in-state rivals for us that we like to treat as a conference game.”

Schmitz said the scouting reports say Mathey is doing a really nice job there.

“Northern has a lot of confidence, and they are doing things well,” Schmitz said.

Eastern is coming off a three-game series against Morehead State, where they went 1-2.

Schmitz said the game on Sunday went well but that the players are not playing consistent.

“We played really well against Morehead in game one, and we lost anyway. We played poorly in game two, and we played extremely well in game three and won,” Schmitz said.

Schmitz said they had good offense, defense and hitting on Sunday in the game they won.

Mathey said he was uncertain on who their starting pitcher would be, although he said it would be a conference left hander.

Schmitz said they are starting senior pitcher Matt Tyson.

“Tyson did not have a plus or a positive performance on Saturday. He lost game two; he had some miscues behind him and he did not get to pitch very much,” Schmitz said.

Schmitz said they are trying to get ready for the games against conference team Murray State this weekend.

“The key is to get Tyson back on the hill to get ready for the game against Murray,” Schmitz said. “We are getting them ready to be more sharp and more consistent this weekend.”

Schmitz’s main concern is the weather cooperating so they can play the games this week.

“My worry is the weather, that we get the games in, so we can be sharp getting ready to play Murray,” Schmitz said.