It was a frustrating weekend for the Illini as they had leads in all three games against University of Texas-Arlington only to lose them. Friday’s game was a heartbreaker lost in extra innings.
Instead of dwelling on the losses (you can check out box scores yourself with fightingillini.com’s new web feature, click on a game on their schedule page and details of the game appear on the right… nice job, web people!), let’s check out Brandon Wikoff’s stats.
Wikoff, a freshman, is wasting no time putting up tasty stats. He’s batting .385 (second on the team behind Kyle Hudson’s .469) with 7 ribbies and 5 runs. Wikoff has displaced Mike Rohde at third base so Rohde can play first for the departing Dave Schultz. Wikoff has been batting near the top of of the lineup, sometimes leadoff, sometimes batting second and those kind of numbers have been handy.
On another note, Shawn Roof has continued his pilfering tear. He stole 4 more bases against UTA last weekend to raise his season total to 10. And no, he hasn’t been caught yet.
The Illini start a seven-game in eight days road tour on Friday in Bradenton, Florida. They play their first northern opponent, Vermont.
Two weeks from today is the Illini home opener.