The No. 15 baseball team will host the Arkansas-Little Rock Trojans at 7 tonight at L. Dale Mitchell Baseball Park as one of the two makeup games on its schedule after two games were canceled earlier this season.

The Sooners (32-12, 10-9 Big 12) had the final two games of their series against the Baylor Bears on March 19 and 21 canceled due to snow, and they needed to replace those two games .

OU scheduled one game against the Trojans (2-21, 5-14 Sun Belt) for tonight and one against Texas Southern on May 19 at home.

The first replacement game could not have come at a better time. The Sooners are fresh off their weekend series victory over the Kansas State Wildcats, and have a big series against Bedlam foe Oklahoma State this weekend.

The Sooners need this midweek game to recover from the tough weekend series and keep the momentum going as they try to make a move up the Big 12 standings.

OU is fourth in the conference, and even though tonight’s game will not improve its standings, it can give the team more confidence before they get a chance to make that improvement.

If history is any indication, OU should have little trouble getting the win against Arkansas-Little Rock before facing the Oklahoma State Cowboys.

OU defeated the Trojans twice at the beginning of last season in Norman by the scores of 11-7 and 16-6.

However, a loss would be more devastating than a victory would be helpful for the Sooners at this point in the season.

Even though a win would help keep the team on a path toward a successful end to the regular season and a possible higher seed in the NCAA tournament, a loss could dash any hopes OU has of hosting a regional game because it would negatively impact the team’s RPI, a rating based on a team’s strength of schedule.