Well, the Illinois 2013 season is now over. To be honest, they got further than even I thought they would. It was three games into the NCAA Regionals and losing quite a heartbreaker to Georgia Tech.
For those who care, GT ended up giving Vanderbilt a run for their money. They shut them out 5-0 on Sunday forcing a “win-or-go-home” final on Monday. #1 Vandy did end taking the Nashville Regional by winning the final game 7-1.
Fighting Illini put out a special video on arguably one the best seasons by a hitter in this millennium. You’ll find their video tribute to Justin Parr on fightingillini.com.
Kudos to Kevin again
Congratulations to Kevin Duchene for being named as a 2013 Louisville Slugger Freshman All-American. Kevin has it coming. He now holds the team record for freshman for wins with 9. Along with his 9-1 record, he sported a 2.79 ERA and struck out 68 in 80 plus innings. When I think about it, no pitcher accumulated as many wins since I started covering Illinois Baseball and that says a lot. Nice going, Kevin!
Baseball Brainiacs
I know that the Illini Baseball program and especially Coach Dan Hartleb, places a high importance on academics and once again, they’re being recognized for it. Along with the Illini men’s and women’s golf, women’s gymnastics, soccer and women’s tennis teams, Illinois Baseball earned the NCAA Public Recognition Award for Academic Progress Rate (APR).
As a school, Illinois tied Ohio State for having the most teams that earned the award in the Big Ten.
Draft Days
Here’s a trivia question for you. Who was John Ericks?
Answer: He was University of Illinois Baseball’s only first round draft pick. Ericks was chosen in 1988 by the St Louis Cardinals and did actually make it to the bigs.
Why is this relevant? Tonight the MLB Draft begins. For the next couple of days, I’m sure certain draft-eligible Illini will be paying a lot of attention to the draft choices made by the big league clubs. Good luck guys!!
For those interested in updates, here’s a link to MLB Draft Central. You can see the full list of drafted Illini baseball players on fightingillini.com