Four homers on Sunday ensures series win against Penn State

Before the game, Pete Cappetta predicted two wins for the weekend

This time it was the Illini who took some advantage of the 20-25 mph wind at Illinois Field.

With four homers and a fantastic effort by the bullpen, Illinois closed out this past weekend’s series on a winning note.  Defeating Penn State 15-3 on Sunday, Illinois came out the winner for the weekend winning two of three. 

Aaron Johnson does his homerun trot in the first…

…and gets welcomed at home by Casey McMurray and Brandon Hohl

And yowza! the offense did it in style.  Aaron Johnson, Casey McMurray hit one homerun each.  But Adam Davis!!  Not only did Davis hit his first college career homerun Sunday but he hit his second, too. 

McMurray had four hits on day and Davis drove in four runs.

Pete Cappetta got in on the action, too.  He went 3 for 5 with four rbis on the day.  Two of Cappetta’s three hits were doubles and obviously came at the right time… with runners on base. 

I can’t stress this enough… Pete who is the first to admit his hitting had been off the first part of season, has really come on lately.  For the weekend, he was 7 for 13.  He’s chosen a good time to start hitting, too… at the beginning of the Big Ten conference schedule. 

Josh Parr rounds third to score

And give Craig Lutes a little kudos.  He’s been coming through with some big hits.  For the weekend, he had seven rbis. 

Corey Kimes got the win Sunday and he deserved it.  Relieving Lee Zerrusen after 4 innings, Kimes pitched three scoreless innings.  That was enough for the Illini offense to kick in and get him the ‘W’.  Kevin Manson came in to pitch the last two frames.  He didn’t get the save since the Illini were so far ahead but give him some credit… he pitched two hitless innings against the Nittany Lions. 

Coach Hartleb gave the team some glowing praise after the game:

“This was the most complete game we’ve played this year.  We showed that we’re capable of playing at a high level, but we have to do it more consistently than we have to this point."

I have more photos at the photo gallery.  I’d have more but I made the mistake of buying cheap batteries.  Lesson learned.

Next up

Illinois will be taking on Bradley on Tuesday.  This time it’s for real.  Illinois was scheduled to play Bradley at home on February 20-21 and well, that game never happened because we had the snow thing goin’ on here in Central Illinois.  No chance of that now… even up in Peoria.

And don’t forget about the Illinois matchup with Missouri at Busch on Wednesday night. 

Congrats Illini on a great series!