The Lansing Lugnuts have made it to the Midwest League finals for just the second time in franchise history, but have a great task ahead of them if they want to snag the championship like they did in 1997.

In 1997 the Lugnuts trailed the Kane County Cougars 2-0. The Lugnuts went on to win the last three games and take the championship.

The Lugnuts have dropped two in a row to the Peoria Chiefs and need a to win tonight for a chance to climb back into the championship hunt.

“We’ve been playing hard lately,” Lugnut manager Julio Garcia said.

“I think we’ve shown all year we can come back from rough starts, outings, any time we face adversity.

“We’re going back home to play in front of our fans, I think we’ll have a pretty good chance.”

The Chiefs are certainly a formidable foe - perhaps the strongest team in either division of the Midwest League.

Peoria claimed league-leading honors in the regular season in several team categories - win percentage (.662), batting average (.261) and ERA (2.77) among the list of accomplishments.

And Peoria has lived up to its reputation - no Midwest team was able to walk away from a series with the Chiefs in 2002 boasting a winning record.

The Lugnuts went 3-5 against Peoria in regular-season play and are 0-2 in the playoffs so far.

The Chiefs’ starting pitchers for the first two playoff games boasted an anemic 1.29 and 2.45 earned run averages during the season.

In Monday and Tuesday’s games, the Lugnuts struck out 21 times.

“We knew coming in the opportunities we were going to get to score were going to be very few,” Garcia said.

Tonight’s matchup pits Peoria right-hander Mike Wodnicki against Lugnut lefty Renyel Pinto.

“I think we just have to forget about what happened (the last two games) and turn everything around and play some good baseball,” Lugnuts catcher Lukas McKnight said.

Game three of the best-of-five series begins tonight at 6:35 at Oldsmobile Park, 505 E. Michigan Ave.