For the second time at the Bright House Invitational, the Illini had the lead past the fifth inning and lost the game. Today, Illinois grabbed a 2-1 lead thanks to a Willie Argo homerun in the top of the sixth inning. However, by the bottom of the sixth, two Stetson Hatters had scored giving them the lead for good. The final score was 5-3 giving John Anderson his first loss of the year.
By the way, Argo’s homerun in the sixth was the first homerun for Illinois this year (eight games). Davis Hendrickson who has really been hitting consistently well this season, contributed two hits and a rbi.
Hartleb for one reason or another seems to like the Anderson/Pack team for Saturday games. They’ve done well up until today each winning one game. And quite honestly, they certainly could have done worse today. Coach Hartleb even gave kudos to Anderson in his post-game interviews when he said that he pitched “very well”. Anderson gave up four runs total today but he also got into a stretch where he retired nine in a row. Chris Pack allowed a run in 1 2/3 innings.
Next Up:
This leaves one more game down in Deland, Florida at the Bright House Invitational for the Illinois team to get at least one win. Tomorrow, it’s a new face, Columbia. Not only have we never faced Columbia in the past, this is the first weekend that Columbia has played this season.
One more note: Game Time has been moved up to 9am because of impending weather.
Random Ramblings:
Kudos to the Big Ten Network for making the right choice and choosing Red Grange as the #1 Big Ten Icon. Maybe I’m biased but he would be my choice, too. In this day and age, when it’s so easy to forget sports figures who aren’t from our generation, I’m glad to see BTN, did not.
If you are an Illini fan and aren’t too familiar with Grange’s story, it is truly worth knowing. His wikipedia page is a good place to start.
Here are the top ten Big Ten Icons chosen by the Big Ten Network:
The Top 10 Big Ten Icons:
1 – Red Grange, Illinois
2 – Earvin “Magic” Johnson, Michigan State
3 – Jesse Owens, Ohio State
4 – Archie Griffin, Ohio State
5 – Tom Harmon, Michigan
6 – Dick Butkus, Illinois
7 – Nile Kinnick, Iowa
8 – Jerry Lucas, Ohio State
9 – Rick Mount, Purdue
10 – Isiah Thomas, Indiana
Go Illini!!
Any gut feelings on where the team is right now going forward?
hi Chris,
First, it’s hard to tell watching Live Stats from Urbana, IL. All I’m going on are the reports I’m getting back from the SIDs (can’t wait till they get back to Illinois Field!).
Buuut, it seems that the pitching is holding up, especially Johnson and Anderson. Kimes had some rough starts but I think he’ll come around or maybe they’ll make him our closer (which I assumed he would be at the beginning of the year).
It looks like Coach H is playing around with the lineup. I see that he led off Argo today (curiously, the day after he hit a HR). We’ll see what it looks like when conference season comes around.
The good news is that we have some consistent hitters. McMurray, Josh Parr, Brandon Hohl and Davis Hendrickson have all been hitting the ball since day one.
I’ve gone down to Florida the past two weekends. The common denominator between the wins and losses have been whether all facets of the game have been clicking, or not. A simply review of the box scores will support this. The kids themselves as well as the coaches are very high on this years team. Once the execution issues are worked out, they will be a solid team. Once they start playing at home, come out and support the kids.