Thomas Shelton hits a 3-run homer in the 7th inning…
…and gets welcomed at the plate by his teammates.
Lots of excitement tonight at the Illinois-Ohio State game… from off and on rain to a 20 minute delay due to an outage of the stadium lights. However, nothing thrilled the crowd more than the combination of Kevin Johnson’s outstanding pitching performance and the late inning explosion of offense by the Illini hitters topped off by Thomas Shelton’s first homerun of the season.
KNJ had his hard core look going before the game
First things first. Kevin Johnson was his usual stingy self tonight against the Buckeyes. In 7 2/3 innings, #22 allowed only four hits and struck out five. He did walk five (it didn’t seem that many… he spread them out). The end result? Only one run for the Bucks and Johnson’s sixth win of the year. Some wondered (including myself) if he would complete the game. Looking at the stats, I see Kevin’s pitch count was at 129. I can see why Coach Hartleb brought in Anthony Milazzo in the 8th inning when things got just a little tense. Milazzo, by the way, did a fine job closing out the game.
Anthony Milazzo: Five strikeouts in 1 1/3 innings!
As a matter of fact, Milazzo managed to strike out five batters in 1 1/3 innings! That’s right, due to a Buckeye batter reaching first on a dropped third strike, he struck out one more batter than he got out.
In the sixth, the runs kept coming (Reid Roper)…
…and coming (Kelly Norris-Jones).
For a while tonight, I was wondering if it might be a 1-0 or 2-1 game. Both pitchers were pitching well getting through the order without much trouble. By the end of the sixth inning, it was Illinois’ game 2-1. That was when the offense really kicked in. Three singles in a row by Reid Roper, Kelly Norris-Jones and Thomas Shelton got things going. Thomas Lindauer grounded in an rbi and Willie Argo contributed an rbi base hit. Three more runs made it 5-1.
Just in case, the Illini added more insurance in the seventh. With two runners on, Norris-Jones drove in a run with another base hit. That’s when Shelton came to the plate. Shelton hit a 3-run blast over the right field wall. That made it 9-1 which was the final score.
More photos here. I’m over 7,000 photos now of Illinois baseball in the past six years for anyone who’s counting.
Next Up
Two more games with the Buckeyes. Saturday’s game is at 3pm and the weatherman promises it will be dryer and warmer. Sunday’s game is at 1pm.