Category: University of Illinois Baseball

If you were a Minnesota Gopher fan, you have to be pretty happy right today. In the bottom of the 9th, eighth place hitter and secondbaseman Joe Maciej hit a walk-off two-run homerun to beat Ohio State 4-3.

That sets the stage for the tournament championship game tomorrow. It will be a rematch between the same teams.

Big Ten Tournament Central web page

Update: Here is the Game recap

Purdue eliminated Illinois from the Big Ten Tournament today defeating them in a hard fought extra inning contest 4-3.

Starter Jimmy Conroy kept the Illini in it for most of the game.

One can hardly fault starting pitcher Jimmy Conroy who pitched a heck of a game. He pitched a 10 inning complete game allowing only 3 earned runs.

Shawn Roof hurrying to his post at the hot corner.

Shawn Roof did his best, too. He went 3-4 with an rbi. For the tournament, Roof was 6 for 7.

A word about Shawn Roof. His bio informs us that he was named “Mr Hustle” by his high school in Paducah, KY. If you watch him during the game, you can see why. When the inning is over, he runs out to his position at third base. Then when his team is up, he runs back to the dugout. He does nothing at half-pace.

Chris Robinson heading to third on a run-scoring triple. Coach Itch Jones is in the foreground.

I enjoyed watching Robbie play thoughout the spring. It seemed he could do everything. He’s a good hitter (.353 with 8 HR), has great instincts behind the plate and a great arm.

And they don’t give out Big Ten Sportman awards for being a jerk.

So that’s it for the Illini in the tournament. With them and Iowa eliminated that leaves #3 Purdue as the only team left seeded in the top half of the bracket.

Didn’t make it to the Illini game yesterday. Elected instead to take my 5-year daughter out on a date. It was a close call but she’s a real sweet talker sometime.

Got back in time to listen to most of it on the radio… if only I could stay awake. It wasn’t that the game was boring, it’s just been a long week. I remember waking up briefly and hearing that the Illini were up 6-2 and falling back in blissful slumber thinking that the good guys had things well in hand.

I had forgotten one of reasons I like the game of baseball so much:

Almost anything can happen and usually does.

And when we’re talking about college baseball, that rule is especially true. Unfortunately, the Illini fell to the Gophers 11-8. The good news is that the Illini have started to score runs which they didn’t against Iowa last weekend.

Next up, it’s now or never. Later this afternoon, they play the winner of the Purdue/Michigan game which is just getting on its way right now.

And I’ll be there

Updated Big Ten Tournament Bracket

Followup:
I forgot to mention that Michigan eliminated Iowa from the tourney by defeating them 8-6 yesterday. Much as I dislike Michigan, I can’t help feel a little relieved. We had a tough time with Iowa last weekend.

One more thing… for those who want to listen or follow the Illinois game via Gamecast, go to the Big Ten Tournament Central web page.

The first two games were played today at Illinois Field.

Ohio State 7 Michigan 3

Minnesota 14 Iowa 7

But now I’m confused.

Look at the updated bracket and see if this makes sense to you. According to the playoff bracket, shouldn’t Illinois be playing Ohio State?

Anyway, Illinois is scheduled to play Minnesota Thursday night at 7:05pm and barring any last minute crises, I should be there rooting them on.

Update: I am confused no longer. If I taken the time to look at the original bracket (below), it explains it clearly. Illinois is playing the lower seeded team.

Well, classes have been over for a couple weeks but if you’re a college baseball fan, things are still abuzz this week here in Champaign-Urbana. Tomorrow, the Big Ten Baseball Tournament begins!

Big Ten Coach of the Year Itch Jones

First things first though. Illinois Coach Itch Jones was named Big Ten Coach of Year. Jones guided the Illini to a 20-12 conference season (30-21-1 overall) and won the Big Ten title.

Congratulations Coach Jones!

Other Awards

Big Ten Player of the Year Drew Davidson

UI Centerfielder Drew Davidson won Big Ten Player of the Year. Drew hit 14 homers with 51 rbis while batting .326. All while playing excellent defense (he had no errors for the season). Nice going, Drew!

Five Illini made the All-Big Ten team first team.

1B- Dusty Bensko
OF- Drew Davidson
OF- Ryan Rogowski
C- Chris Robinson
SP- Brian Blomquist

and three made the second team.

2B- J.R. Kyes
DH- Mike Rohde
SP- Jimmy Conroy

Finally, Chris Robinson won the Big Ten Sportsmanship Honorees Award.

Official story from fightingillini.com

Congrats to all for a great season!!

But It’s Not Over Yet

As mentioned earlier, the Big Ten tournament begins tomorrow. Being the first place team, the Illini have a bye and don’t play till Thursday night.

Here is the tournament bracket:

You can find the bracket pdf here

Also, check out The Tournament Central web page.

Finally, a comment from Coach Jones regarding the Illini’s chances:

“I feel confident in our players. We didn’t have a hot, cold, hot, cold season like other teams. We just went hot, hot, hot and then cold.”

I hope that’s a good thing.

Good luck, team!!

I never thought I’d say this but:

Thank you, Indiana!

Here’s the scenario:

Going into the last game of the season, Illinois still had a magic number of one. Either they had to win or Purdue had to lose in order for them to win the Big Ten title.

Well, I went to the game against Iowa and it just wasn’t happenin’ for the Illini. Iowa jumped out to a quick 7-1 lead. The Illini had their chances. Two innings in a row they loaded the bases (once with no outs) but couldn’t capitalize.

And it wasn’t like they weren’t hitting the ball hard either. Most of the time though, it was hit hard at a defender. In one frustrasting inning, each batter hit a hard rope only to be snared by a Iowa fielder for consecutive outs.

Final Score: Iowa 7 Illinois 1

But here comes the Good News part. Last place Indiana defeated Purdue 6-0. The score was announced over the PA after the game. That put Illinois at 20-12 and Purdue at 17-11.

It’s not how Illinois wanted to win it all but I like how shortstop Toby Gardenhire put it:

“This isn’t exactly the way we wanted to win it, but we won a lot of games early to put ourselves in this position.”

Story from fightingillini.com

Final Big Ten Standings

Unfortunately, UI starter Aaron Saving didn’t have his stuff today.

This Iowa runner is getting dangerously close to getting booted from the game. He was out on a fielder’s choice and the umpire ruled he interfered with the throw to first for the attempted DP. The ump ruled it a DP. This guy argued for a good minute or so and was not happy.

This kid was awesome. In between innings, he managed on his own to lead a cheer and get at least 3 sections of fans to participate. In his high-pitched voice, he would yell, “I-L-L!” and the rest of us would respond with “I-N-I!”

Kid, I hope you’re back next year!

Toby Gardenhire rounding third to score Illinois’ only run.

The team celebrating their Big Ten title.

Sunday games at home include a really neat promotion. After the game, kids get to go on the field and play wiffleball with the Illinois players. This is immensely popular with fans and has been nationally recognized in NCAA baseball as one the best promotions in college baseball.

Next up is the Big Ten Tournament at Illinois Field this weekend.

Today’s University of Illinois baseball game is being billed as “Dog Day Afternoon”. It says in part:

Bring your dog to the park and receive free admission for yourself and your four-legged friend

Yes, and don’t forget to bring your pooper scoopers. And I’m sure your dogs will behave just fine with a hundred other dogs in a small enclosed area.

I attended the Illini game last night and it wasn’t pretty. They lost their fifth in a row and their magic number remains at two. With three games left against Iowa this weekend, they need to win the next two to clinch the Big Ten title.

Brian Blomquist took the loss last night and it was evident he didn’t have his stuff. Iowa exploded for a 7-run inning in the fourth which pretty much sealed up the game though Illinois did make it interesting by scoring a few in the later innings.

Final score: Iowa 12 Illinois 9

As seen here, Iowa used the hit and run pretty frequently.

Iowa starter Jeff Maitland held Illinois in check until the 6th inning when he was pulled for a reliever.

Maybe it’s me but Iowa has the ugliest road uniforms. Talk about dingy looking.

A frustrated Illini Coach Itch Jones walking off the field after not scoring any runs.

Seems to me I remember when Coach Jones came on board with the Illini years ago, his nickname was “Itchy”. For some reason, the Athletic Dept at the U of I thought that “Itchy” was unsavory or something. So they decreed to change his nickname to the much more acceptable “Itch”.

Whatever.

We moved back behind the plate towards the end of the game. This is probably the worst seat in the park and it ain’t too bad. We stood next to these guys who were riding the umps really hard. I had to admit the home plate ump was pretty inconsistent with his balls and strikes.

Tonight there is a twi-night doubleheader and tomorrow an afternoon game. It sure would be nice if they could sweep tonight and play tomorrow “just for the fun of it”.

In what hopefully will not be a trend, the Illini lost their fourth game in a row against #20 Missouri. Despite 3 Missori errors, they lost 6-2. It was a game of lost opportunities as they stranded 6 runners in scoring position.

Illinois remains first in the Big Ten but their lead has slipped to 3 games.

The last regular season series is at home this weekend. They play second-place Iowa. This is a BIG series for them.

After winning their first game against Minnesota Friday night, Illinois seemed to fall apart for the rest of the 4 game series.

Saturday’s game was won by the Gophers 5-4. The Illini struck out 12 times. Game two was postponed till Sunday because of rain.

On Sunday, things didn’t get much better. The Illini dropped the first game 6-2 and lost the re-scheduled second game 11-5.

It’s the first time this year that the team has lost 3 in a row. Fortunately, they remain in first place, 3 games ahead of Iowa, Purdue and Minnesota.

Big Ten Standings