[media-credit name=’DEREK MONTGOMERY/Herald photo’ align=’alignright’ width=’336′][/media-credit]The University of Wisconsin softball team (12-12 overall, 3-1 Big Ten) takes a brief hiatus Wednesday from its Big Ten slate to travel to Chicago, Ill., for the first game of a home and home series against the University of Illinois-Chicago (the Flames will travel to Madison May 4).

The Flames (25-16 overall, 3-0 Horizon) have been the cream of the Horizon league for the better part of the last decade, winning the conference championship in six of the past seven years and are currently in first place in the conference standings.

The Badgers and Flames are quite familiar with each other, as Wednesday’s game will mark the sixth meeting between the two teams since 2001, with UIC holding a 3-2 series edge. In the home and home set last season, the two teams split the pair of games, with each team winning on the road.

“We have a big week coming up this week against UIC, always a very competitive team for us, and then going into this weekend against probably the two best Big Ten teams,” Wisconsin head coach Karen Gallagher said, referring to the team’s two-weekend series against No. 1 Michigan and No. 18 Northwestern.

Illinois-Chicago is a dangerous offensive team, with eight different players posting double-digit RBI numbers thus far. Five Flames are also all batting above the .300 mark, with senior outfielder Cameron Astiazaran leading the way. Astiazaran’s .458 batting average is among the nation’s best and her 21 doubles, seven home runs, four triples and 27 RBI all are team highs.

Illinois-Chicago’s pitching has been the team’s Achilles heel thus far, as the Flames have been prone to giving up offensive outbursts en route to accumulating a team ERA of 3.64, almost a full run over Wisconsin’s 2.69 team ERA. The Flames have allowed eight runs or more in six contests this season.

Wisconsin will likely see either junior Brittany McIntyre or freshman Mercedes Lovato take the mound for the Flames. McIntyre is 9-8 on the year with a 3.61 ERA, but has had trouble keeping the ball in the park, having given up 14 home runs so far this year. McIntyre has also posted four shutouts on the year. Lovato has posted a 14-6 record and an ERA of 3.44 to go along with a pair of shutouts.

Wisconsin will enter Wednesday’s game fresh off of taking three of four games in their first Big Ten weekend of competition.

Gallagher’s squad will be looking to get off to a hot start against the Flames, something it has struggled with thus far. UW needed come-from-behind efforts in all three of their wins last weekend against Ohio State and Penn State.

“I don’t know what our deal is,” shortstop Kris Zacher said with a laugh. “I don’t know if we like the pressure or just want to scratch back, but whatever it is, it is good motivation, I guess. It would be nice for the pitchers to have a little bit of breathing room and insurance runs, but I think we have done a good job that when we do dig ourselves a little hole, we have come back. It would be just as fun to run away with it, though.”

Wisconsin will be looking to reverse its trend of starting slow against Illinois-Chicago, especially with a pair of ranked Big Ten opponents coming to Madison this weekend in Michigan and Northwestern.

“We can’t come from behind in every game,” Gallagher said. “We need to play better from the beginning, but you like to see that never-give-up attitude we have shown.”