Category: University of Illinois Baseball

Four hits by first baseman Ryan Hastings helped Illinois put down the Kansas Jayhawks 11-9 on Wednesday.  Aside from going 4 for 4, Hastings clubbed a homer and a double with 3 runs and 2 rbis.  Kyle Hudson, Joe Bonadonna and Brandon Wikoff all contributed 2 hits apiece.

It was was a close victory though.  Illinois had a 10-2 lead by the 6th when the Jayhawks battled back with three runs in the 7th and two runs in the eighth and ninth.  Ben Reeser came on in the ninth to get the last out for the save. 

Thursday, the Illini were scheduled to take on University of Northern Iowa but the game was canceled due to weather.  The game will not be re-scheduled. 

Today, the good guys played a doubleheader against Central Connecticut State.  Game One went to CCSU 8-7 despite Illinois rallying from an 8-2 deficit.  Kyle Hudson contributed 3 rbis.

Game Two was another one-run game that went Illinois’ way.  Scott Shaw pitched a complete game win with Kyle Hudson (his name seems to be making his way into the highlights a lot isn’t it), frosh Casey McMurray and Brandon Wikoff all getting two hits.  More details at CCSU’s baseball website.  

Coming Up

With that win, that puts the Illini at 7-6 for the season.  Not bad, considering that they started out 2-4.  With the tiring spring break schedule over, they get a slight rest.  The Illini’s schedule takes a turn now and they start playing up north.  On March 25, they play a midweek non-conference game against Indiana State.  Next weekend, they play an honest-to-goodness Big Ten conference game at Michigan State.  

Our first home game?  April 2 against St Louis.  We don’t play a conference game at home till we play Michigan on April 11. 

Go Illini!!

I took a five day hiatus from the blog and the sports world in general as the family and I went to Chicago for an extended weekend.  The only remotely sports related things I encountered was breezing by the Friendly Confines countless times on the Red Line and seeing a couple Chicago Blackhawks who were signing autographs near the ice rink at Millennium Park.  My thought:  get them out on the rink and get them to show their moves. 

But now I’m back.  My first order of business was to check the University of Illinois results so far at Bradenton.  I held my breath and clicked… whew!  So far this week, they are 3-1!

They have won all three at the IMG’s Academy Park in Bradenton, Florida.  Their one loss is to Miami of Ohio which was played at Cincinnati Reds’ spring training digs, Ed Smith Stadium. 

No doubt, the Illini have found their hitting shoes.  After averaging a little over four runs a game for the first six games, they average 8 for these four games thanks in part to a 15-11 win over Akron on Sunday. 

The Illini saw some good pitching too most definitely from Aaron Martin who yesterday pitched a 5-0 complete game shutout. 

Back on Friday, Kyle Hudson saw his six game hitting streak come to an end.  Despite that, he did contribute to the cause with a run, an rbi and his 4th stolen base of the year.

But dang, I wish I was there for Sunday’s 15-11 slugfest over Akron.  Despite the high score, it was a close one and it came down to the ninth.  DH Daniel Webb, who was oh for 4, hit a walk-off grand slam to win it.  What was it I said last week about knowing that these guys could hit the long ball??  I was right.  Dom Altobelli and Ryan Hastings also hit taters in this game. 

By the way, team manager Mike Schroeder has some fun stuff to write about in this week’s edition of Diamond Notes. 

Three more games left in Illinois’ intense spring break schedule including today’s game against Kansas. 

Go Illini!!

After last weekend’s canceled series against Texas Tech, the University of Illinois baseball team heads south for spring break.  Their destination is the IMG Academies in Bradenton, Florida where they will play five games.  In between, they will take on Miami of Ohio at Ed Smith Stadium (the Cincinnati Reds’ spring training grounds) on Saturday and University of Northern Iowa at Manatee Community College on Thursday.  

What it comes down to is a busy seven game run in eight days.  The good news is that Illinois is 6-1 against the teams they will be facing (their one loss is against Central Connecticut State).  That bodes well for the good guys who have a chance to improve their 2-4 record. 

Thanks to his six game hitting streak, Kyle Hudson is hitting .421 so far this young season.  He also has a .522 OBA and 3 steals which might have prompted Coach Hartleb to move him from his usual #9 spot in the order to leadoff two weeks ago against UI-Chicago.  We’ll see what he does with him this coming week. 

The Illini have been out-homered 0 to 6 in the first six games.  I went to the Orange-Blue Series last fall so I know they’re capable of hitting it out.  Again, we’ll see what happens this week.

Go Illini!!

A quiet news week on the Illini front since they weren’t able to find anyone to play ball with last weekend due to the weather in Dallas.  That said, there are a couple tidbits worth passing along.

Assumption (Davenport, IA) High School star Willie Argo seems to be ready to play for the Illini when the time comes.  The prep outfielder is currently a senior at Assumption and has connections to Illinois.  His father knew U of I coach Eric Snider when playing at Iowa. 

Argo certainly has some good numbers.  From the Quad City Times:

In baseball, he batted .486 with 13 home runs and 57 RBIs in helping Knights to the Class 2A state title as a sophomore and then batted .508 with five homers and 39 RBIs, in addition to stealing 31 bases, for last year’s state runner-up team.

Illinois firstbaseman Ryan Hastings has been named a semi-finalist for the Lowe’s Senior CLASS Award.  This award is annually given to the most outstanding senior student-athlete in NCAA Division I in the sport of baseball. 

This isn’t the first time that Hastings has been recognized for his academic achievements.  Last year, he and teammate Ryan Snowden were named first team Academic All-District by ESPN magazine.

Finally, I wanted to let everyone know that Zealot friend and consummate college baseball blogger Brian Foley from The College Baseball Blog was interviewed by Oregon Public Radio’s Think Out Loud talk show.  Take a listen. 

No word on the FightingIllini.com site which still headlines the Texas Tech series preview but according to the Texas Tech Athletics website, the Illinois series with them has been canceled due to bad weather in Chicago:

Texas Tech’s weekend baseball series with the Illinois Fighting Illini has beeen cancelled due to weather conditions in the Chicago area that is preventing the team from making the trip to Lubbock. The series opener was scheduled for 4 p.m. on Friday afternoon and was set to be a four-game series.

Interestingly, this is the second cancellation for Tech.  They canceled four games against Northern Illinois two weeks ago. This week, Texas Tech will join Texas State and Northern Illinois, who have allowed the schedule change. 

Update:  Over the weekend, we found out that it was the weather in Dallas, not Chicago that canceled the baseball team’s trip to Texas.