Blake Wilken spent last weekend in bed with the flu. He’ll spend Wednesday afternoon on the mound as the ISU Baseball Club team hosts the UNI Panthers for a doubleheader beginning at 2:30 p.m. at Cap Timm Field.

The right-hander, who missed the Cyclones’ weekend series with the South Dakota Coyotes, stayed home with a headache, runny nose and sore throat, but will take the mound in game one against the Panthers.

“I’m about 75, 80 percent,” Wilken said. “But I’ll be ready to go come game time.”

The Cyclones (2-3, 2-4), who were originally scheduled to play the Panthers on April 5, were forced out of action for the third time against Northern Iowa this season when cold weather struck Ames. They’ll finally take the field against the Panthers for the first time this season in their first home game since a March 25 doubleheader with the University of Iowa.

Even with the flu-like symptoms still lingering with Wilken, club president and second baseman Bryan Scholar said the right-hander will still take the mound.

“I feel pretty confident with him out there,” Scholar said. “I expect him to do what our pitchers did last weekend.”

Matching the Cyclones’ pitching from last weekend will be tough. Iowa State got solid pitching performances all around, including back-to-back complete games by Bryan Junge and Andrew Schmid. The duo combined for 14 innings, scattering 10 hits and allowing only two earned runs in the Saturday split, with Junge taking the win in a 5-2 victory and Schmid taking the loss in a 1-0 defeat to the Coyotes.

“(Bryan) Junge and Andrew Schmid pitched outstanding in the first two games,” Scholar said.

But South Dakota’s pitching held the Cyclones to just four hits in the game-two effort.

“Andrew Schmid just didn’t get any run support,” Scholar said. “We had a couple of chances, but we couldn’t take advantage of anything with two outs and couldn’t get any big hits.”

On Sunday, it was the Coyotes getting big hits as the Cyclones surrendered a 6-4 lead in the bottom of the sixth inning and eventually falling 7-6. Iowa State wrapped up the weekend 1-3 with a 9-3 loss in game four.

“In my opinion, and probably everyone’s opinion, we probably should have won all three games,” Scholar said. “We missed a lot of opportunities getting bunts down, moving runners along, stuff that needs to get done, and we didn’t do it and it really came back to hurt us.”

While the Cyclones did not do some of the small things, their bats did plenty of big things. After a three-week layoff, Iowa State was held scoreless for the first four innings of game one before breaking out for five runs in the fourth, including a two-run home run by Adam Sankot. The rustiness was nothing unfamiliar to Scholar, who watched his club struggle for runs in their first game of the season against the Hawkeyes. After being shut out by Iowa’s Cole McClelland for four innings, the Cyclones finally got to the hard-throwing right-hander, scoring six runs in the fifth inning. The reason for the sudden breakout?

“We take a lot of batting practice during practice,” Scholar said. “We have a bunch of good hitters up and down the lineup – it’s pretty solid. We looked a little rusty at times; there were times that we struggled, but we hit the ball pretty well.”

Scholar said all that rustiness should be worked by the time the Panthers arrive in Ames. As for Wilken, the right hander said a runny nose won’t be keeping him in bed Wednesday and will have no effect when he’s on the mound.

“You’ve got to approach every game the same way,” Wilken said.