#28 Huskers host Illini for last regular season series

John Kravetz scheduled to pitch last game of the regular season

The final regular season is upon the Illinois (30-17, 16-5 Big Ten) baseball team as they face the tough #28 Nebraska Cornhuskers (35-17, 16-5 Big Ten).  It will be a battle of the two second place teams and one team will end up owning that spot.  First place Indiana (36-12, 19-2 Big Ten) is three games up on both teams and catching them is a remote chance for either team.

If Illinois wins this series, they will garner a #2 seed in the Big Ten Tournament next week.  If they lose, they will get the #3 seed.  It’s as simple as that.  The first game begins Thursday night at 6:35pm.

According to the Fightingillini.com series preview, Coach Hartleb has decided on the rotation and he’s not deviating from last week.  It will be Drasen Johnson (5-5, 3.11 ERA) on Friday night, Kevin Duchene (2-1, 1.88 ERA) on Friday and John Kravetz (6-1, 2.88 ERA) for the final game of the regular season.

This won’t be easy… the Cornhuskers are #28 in the nation for a reason.  They are tops in the conference in hitting, fielding, runs, walks and saves.

Chance Sinclair (8-1) and Aaron Bummer (5-3) are the Cornhuskers’ top starting pitchers and they’ve gotten the job done, too.  Their big save guy is Josh Roeder with 11 but they have Zach Hirsch who has done well out of the pen as well.

It should be an exciting series from a purely baseball perspective. I’m sure our guys are geared up for this one.

Following this weekend’s games

For those at home, you can follow the games via LiveStats.  WDWS will be broadcasting at AM1400 with Dave Loane and Matt Wille behind the mike.  Here’s the Twitter feed for @IllinoisBaseball for the play-by-play in 140 characters or less.

The game will also be broadcasted via BTN and Huskers.com.  Here are the links from the Fightingillini.com page:

Live Audio ($)
Game 1 | Game 2 | Game 3

Live Video ($)
Huskers.com (Thursday) | BTDN (Friday) | Watch on BTN2Go(Saturday)

Go Illini!