They played hard but Illinois lost to #21 East Carolina 7-5 in the first game of the Keith LeClair Classic in Greenville, North Carolina.
It was a tough game against a tough team perhaps harder to take because Illinois was so close to winning it. Illinois had the lead after 6 1/2 innings but East Carolina put together a four run rally in the seventh to come back.
Coach Dan Hartleb gave credit to his team but also knew one of reasons why the team didn’t score more runs.
"We played hard. We struck out too much and when we have scoring innings, we need to turn around and put zeroes on the board in the next inning. But we continued to play hard when things didn’t go well and we saw some good things from our guys."
Fair enough. The Pirate pitchers struck out 16 Illini batters.
By the numbers |
|
|---|---|
| 4/9 | Number of runs/hits by the top of the 7th for the Illini |
| 5/7 | Number of runs/hits for the Pirates after that |
| 16 | Times the Illinois batters struck out |
Who was hot for the good guys
The good news is that we had some good games some different players today. That’s a quality Illinois has traditionally had. Every player has the potential to be the big player of the game. Today we had a few who really contributed. Willie Argo 
actually got a chance to bat today (see last weekend where he was walked eight times). Willie responded by getting 2 hits, one a double with 2 rbis. Aaron Johnson pretty much matched that (2 hits, one double, 2 rbis). Casey McMurray, who came into the weekend with one hit, got two today plus an rbi. Craig Lutes (right) was 2 for 3 with a double. Lutes, by the way, is off to a hot start this early season… he’s hitting .357. That’s a slight improvement over his 2009 figure of .216.
Will Strack, it seems, didn’t pitch bad (3 runs, 5 hits in 5 innings). Unfortunately, the bullpen didn’t hold the Pirates in the long 7th inning. Relievers Mike Sterk and Bryan Roberts bore the brunt of East Carolina’s attack.
Next up
Tomorrow the Illini take on the Western Carolina Catamounts. It’s a 10am game so fire up Gametracker early.
By the way, a fan informed me that it might be possible to watch the game live via the East Carolina baseball website. I haven’t had a chance to try it but here is the link.
Go Illini!