CONFERENCE: Conference play opened over the weekend and featured the new look of conference series. Instead of trips to various parts of the area throughout a week, teams will play a four game series with doubleheaders Saturday and Sunday. Teams are also matched with a geographic rival who they play in single games or a doubleheader the weekends of April 26 and May 11. For NMU that rival is conference new comer Bay de Noc.

"I welcome the change," Manger Rob Preseau said. "I think play on the weekends allows our players to concentrate more on their studies, although our team will be done by May 1st, so that argument can be said to apply more to the rest of the conference. Plus these guys don't study much anyway."

HE'S BACK! Catcher Dave Vincent finally turned up at the 'Cats game against Kettering Sunday. Vincent disappeared midway through the team's Spring Break road trip to California.

"What can I say, California was fun," Vincent said. "I didn't feel like coming back, so I kind of hung out in LA for a while before heading to Phoenix. I had a blast. Then some guy asked me to go on a road trip to Michigan, I figured that would be fun, so I went with him. We wound up in Saginaw, so I thought I'd drive down for the game."

Preseau is not happy with Vincent and plans to suspend him for the next six games. "I'd hope our players would take this team more seriously," he said.

LINEUP: Though Vincent is back, some juggling may be done with the line up. Carson Rizor will replace error prone James Haas in right field and Jamie Cairns may more from DH to third base to replace the tandem of Sean Belotte and Clay Roth.

"I haven't decided what to do with the lineup yet. I may have Carson DH and put Matt Honold in right," P reseau said. "We needed to make a move because third base has been an offensive wasteland for us this year." Belotte has not registered a hit in the last six games. Roth is hitting .175 on the year.

CONFERENCE STANDINGS:
Lake State 4-0
NMU 3-1
Ferris State 2-2
UW Marinette 2-2
Bay de Noc 2-2
Finlandia 2-2
Kettering 1-3
Michigan Tech 0-4