Senior outfielder Casey Spears played in snow during a game last year.

Senior reliever Kirk Miller played through sleet and rain against Chicago State. So when Eastern goes to Evansville, Ind., for its opener this weekend, the weather shouldn’t affect them.

The team hasn’t had the chance to even get outside yet this year as the snow and sleet has kept the boys practicing inside the Lantz Fieldhouse.

“Not at all,” said head coach Jim Schmitz, when asked how often his team’s been able to get out. “Last year, in 15 practice days we were able to get outside 12 of those. This year, so far, zero.”

For Spears, that means an added motivation to go to Evansville, who’s ranked 18th in a Rivals.com Poll and National Collegiate Baseball for being one of the top teams in the nation.

Also playing at Evansville will be Chicago State and Toledo, two places also familiar with cold weather. Temperatures are expected to be in the upper 40’s and low 50’s this weekend, according to weather.com.

Schmitz expects to get 80 pitches from his starters in this Midwest rivalry despite the early games.

Miller is just anxious to get outside and pitch.

“Big thing is getting out of the Fieldhouse,” Miller said. “Gets kind of monotonous after a while with pitching drills and throwing to batters in here.”

Schmitz said while inside, he has implemented an arm program for his pitchers that consist of opening up about an hour before practice, administering heat packs, massage treatment and stretching. Long toss, or gradually spreading the distance in playing catch, is also used to get arms in shape.

All the same, Schmitz does understand how cold weather can affect his players, having been to games where the wind chill made the temperature drop into the 20s.

“We’ve had games canceled because it’s just too cold,” Schmitz said. “Because that is the concern if you have a pitcher that’s going up and down, up and down; even if he only throws four innings, if the other team stays out there too long, it’s going to be hard for him to get loose.”

In cases like these, team trainer Tony Katzenmeier will ask a pitcher how he’s feeling and then ask the coach on whether to take him out. From there, he administers ice and checks on him throughout the week.

The only problem the cooler weather presents for Spears is maintaining concentration in the outfield.

“(You) kind of lose your train of thought out there sometimes because you just think about how cold it is sometimes,” he said. “But you really don’t worry about it most of the times because it’s the first week going in and you have so much adrenaline that you really don’t think about it much.”