Lots to talk about in the wake of Illinois’ series victory over (then) #1 LSU Tigers last weekend. The Illini won Friday’s game and Sunday’s game both on the efforts of good starting pitching by Phil Haig and Ben Reeser respectively.
I say "then #1" because well, it’s no surprise that LSU dropped in the rankings. In the Collegiate Baseball Newspaper Poll, LSU dropped after dropping those two games, their first two of the year. Georgia (12-0) and North Carolina (10-2) inched ahead of the Tigers.
But the important thing for us is that Illinois is now ranked! In the same poll, the Illini have reached #21. That makes us the highest ranked Big Ten team ahead of Michigan (#28) and Ohio State (#30).
This is highest we’ve been ranked in ten years and the first time we’ve been ranked at all since 2000.
Build a new mantle… the Illini are getting more awards
A big reason (but by no means the only) the boys in orange and blue have made their jump to national rankdom is because of the performances last weekend of catcher Aaron Johnson and starter Ben Reeser. Johnson was named Co-Big Ten player of the Week and Reeser was named Big Ten Pitcher of the Week.
Those who followed Sunday’s game against LSU saw Reeser pitch himself within out of a shutout before giving up two runs. Illinois won the game 6-2. Johnson went 6 for 12 for the LSU weekend with 5 rbis.
This will be the first time since 1991 that Illinois raked in both Co-Player and Co-Pitcher awards from the Big Ten.
Finally, some good media coverage
The first couple weekends of the season, Illini baseball coverage in the News-Gazette has been pretty weak consisting of "articles" of maybe 3-5 sentences. Once in a while we would see an article of one or two paragraphs.
But I want to say "thanks" or "good job" or maybe even a good natured "about time" to the sports department at the News-Gazette. This past Saturday’s sports section had a quite substantial article on its front page on their win against LSU. Monday’s sports section did too featuring Ben Reeser’s performance.
Keep up the good coverage, News-Gazette! It’s much appreciated. I just hope it doesn’t take Illinois beating a #1 team to get decent media coverage. *grin*
Oh, one more thing… check out Big Ten Hardball’s Sunday post entitled It’s All About Illinois. As an Illini baseball fan, I thoroughly enjoyed the first few paragraphs.