The Nebraska (1-5, 0-0) baseball team heads west again this weekend to take on Arizona State (6-3, 0-0) in a three-game series starting Friday night in Tempe.

The Huskers are looking to end a five-game losing streak that included a three-game sweep last weekend at the Tony Gwynn Legacy tournament. Although the results haven't been there for the Big Red, they have led in every game so far this season.

The Sun Devils, on the other hand, are coming off of four straight wins including a weekend sweep of Boston College followed by a 6-5 extra-inning victory over New Mexico State on Tuesday. Before this stretch of wins, Arizona State dropped three of their first five games to Villanova, Michigan and Oklahoma State.

Following this series, NU will finally head home for a four-game series against Columbia next weekend.

Friday 7:30 p.m.: Gareth Stroh (1-0, 6.10 ERA) vs. Cooper Benson (0-1, 5.40)

Saturday 7:30 p.m.: Colby Gomes (0-0, 7.71) vs. Tyler Thornton (1-0, 2.84)

Sunday 1:30 p.m.: Cade Povich (0-2, 2.79) vs. Justin Fall (0-0, 3.60)

Offense shows promise: The Huskers have had their fair share success hitting this season with four players batting over .300. Sophomore Cam Chick leads the team at the plate with an average of .379 and 11 hits. Junior Aaron Palensky has Nebraska's second best batting average (.333), followed by seniors Ty Roseberry and Luke Roskam who are both batting .304. Chick also leads the team in home runs (2), triples (1), total bases (20), and slugging percentage (.690). This group, along with others, will try to regain offensive momentum after two low scoring games.

Maintaining a lead: NU has had struggles holding onto leads this season. The Big Red have held a lead at some point in every game, and in five of those have let it slip. Along with this, Nebraska has been first to score in each game. "I've been pleased with being ready to play," Head coach Will Bolt said "now it's just a matter of finishing the games off." Getting a lead, and making sure it is maintained will be a major focus this weekend for the Huskers.

Pitchers settling in: The Huskers are keeping the same three starting pitchers for the third weekend in a row. Between weeks one and two the starters have seemed to show signs of improvement. Last weekend, all three pitchers threw for a minimum of five innings, while, in week one, only senior Gareth Stroh was able to pitch that long in. For sophomore Colby Gomes, five innings was a career-long and he only gave up two hits and a single run. The Sunday starter Cade Povich has produced a team-high 15 strikeouts and has only allowed one walk in his two starts. Nebraska will look to continue this progress into this weekend.

***The Sun Devils are currently ranked between eighth and 12th depending on which ranking you look at.

***The last time these two teams faced off was in May last season where Nebraska won the series taking two of the three games. Arizona State won the first matchup of that weekend when their starting pitcher, Alex Marsh, threw 10 strikeouts and beat the Huskers 15-6.

***Arizona State went 38-19 last season which included a 16-13 record in Pac-12 play placing them in fifth in their conference. ASU was the preseason favorite to win the Pac-12 in 2020, as they received seven of the 11 first-place votes in the official coaches poll.