Illinois baseball heads to Northwestern in search of more wins

Call it the “I-57 Challenge”.

This weekend, Illinois is on the road.  They travel to Evanston for a three-game set at Northwestern’s Rocky and Berenice Miller Park. 

Illinois (12-13, 2-4 Big Ten) is looking for some consistency.  With some luck and effort, they will find it against Northwestern. Offensive threats like Jacob Schroeder, Branden Comia, and Drake Westcott are having big seasons not to mention Ryan Moerman who leads the team in batting average and rbis. 

Despite losing their first twelve games of their season, the Wildcats have recovered just slightly.  They have won two of their last five games including one Big Ten win against Purdue.  What has helped?  They have gotten their team ERA down in single digits (9.26). 

Overall, the Wildcats still sport a 3-20 record though. 

On the mound

Friday: Riley Gowens 1-2, 6.69 ERA

Saturday: Jake Swartz 0-1, 5.17 ERA

Sunday: Jack Wenninger 4-1, 3.74 ERA

It’s been a while since I’ve seen such a well-pitched game than I did on Sunday.  Jack Wenninger was on his game and Coach Allen let him pitch for a full eight innings.  Wenninger rewarded the fans with another win.  It was his fourth one of the year, tied for third best in the Big Ten. 

Nice work, Jack! 

Looking forward to the weekend

Northwestern Wildcats

3-20 (1-2 Big Ten)

Friday 3pm CT Saturday 2pm CT Sunday 1pm CT

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A look at last weekend

Before I forget, I wanted to pass on photos from last Saturday and Sunday (here’s the link to the 2023 list of galleries).

Saturday was a cold and windy day but the game was able to be played despite the iffy weather.  The game was pushed back to 5pm which seemed to be the right call. 

Unfortunately, the Illini lost again to Michigan 12-9.  Danny Doligale and Ryan Moerman contributed homeruns to the cause. 

Reliever Joe Glassey did everything he could to keep Illinois in the game.  He pitched 5 2/3 innings of scoreless ball. 

Sunday was a totally different ballgame weather-wise (and otherwise).  It was a beautiful and sunny day with just enough breeze to help Illinois’ bats.  And indeed, four Illini hit homeruns on Sunday to help starter Jack Wenninger breeze past Michigan 11-1. 

Random Ramblings

Sunday was, of course, Coach Dan Hartleb’s magic number 519^th win for the Illini passing Coach Lee Eilbracht.  There was a short recognition after the game before more important things like the kids’ Easter egg hunt (I kid!). 

As I’ve said before, I have been following Illinois baseball for Coach Hartleb’s tenure at Illinois.  When Hartleb’s predecessor, Coach Itch Jones took won the Big Ten championship in 2005, the conference tournament was held at Illinois Field and I attended.  I was since hooked.

This is one of the earliest (good) photos I have of Coach Hartleb.  It was taken at the 2007 Big Ten tournament at Ray Fisher Stadium in Ann Arbor. 

Coach, you haven’t aged a bit! 

Let’s get some wins!