IU faces Northwestern in regular season finale

The IU baseball team takes on the Northwestern Wildcats this weekend in what will be the Hoosiers' final series before the Big Ten tournament. The four-game series begins Friday, leading into a doubleheader Saturday and the series finale Sunday. All games will be played at Sembower Field, with Friday's game starting at 3 p.m., Saturday's doubleheader beginning at 1 p.m. and Sunday's finale at 1 p.m.\nThe Hoosiers (31-19, 14-14 Big Ten going into Wednesday's non-conference game with Valparaiso) appear headed toward their second straight Big Ten tournament. The tournament invites the top six records in the league, and going into this weekend, IU holds the sixth place spot, with a three-and a-half game lead over Purdue and Illinois, who both are sitting at 10-17 in league play. Illinois is heading into a four-game weekend series with Iowa, while Purdue has their own weekend series against Michigan. For either team to take IU's spot in the tournament, Illinois or Purdue must sweep their series, combined with a Northwestern sweep of IU. \nIU is coming off of a series split with the Boilermakers. After a rainout Friday, the Hoosiers dropped both games of the Saturday doubleheader 10-3 and 20-4, respectively. The Hoosiers then rebounded to take both games of the Monday doubleheader, winning the first game 14-5 and the finale 4-2. In the two wins, senior Nick Evans was hot offensively, going a combined four for seven, with three runs and seven RBIs, knocking in his third homer of the season in the 14-5 victory. His .331 batting average ranks him at third on the team. \nContinuing the impressive performance from his junior season, senior Vasili Spanos, who received third-team honors from the American Baseball Coaches Association last year, is again putting up award-winning numbers. His Big Ten average of .422 leads the league, along with a .778 slugging percentage, .519 on-base percentage, eight home runs and 70 total bases. His 38 hits and 27 runs place him at No. 2 in the conference. \nFreshman pitcher Josh Lewis comes into the weekend with a solid 4-1 Big Ten record. He is also second on the team in starts with 10 -- including two complete games -- while posting a 4.94 ERA and 25 strikeouts. Senior Jacob Cary has a 7-3 overall record going into Wednesday's Valparaiso matchup, including a 3-3 record in Big Ten play, and has started 11 games, including an impressive six complete games. Cary has a 4.93 ERA to go along with 44 strikeouts.