It was a good effort but not the result intended for Illinois’ first game of their spring break trip today down in Lakeland, Florida.
In this morning’s game, Illinois lost to Army 9-8 despite a good effort by the Illini who rallied for five runs for in the the ninth. That gave them an 8-6 lead but Army’s J.P. Polchinski hit a 3-run, walk-off homer to win the game.
Phil Haig allowed three earned runs… more than he has pitched all year combined. Nick Chmielewski was tagged with the homer in the ninth as well as the the loss.
Illini’s offense did make the game close though. Willie Argo hit his fifth dinger of the season driving in two and scoring two. Brandon Wikoff and Dominic Altobelli both collected three hits on the day.
The loss puts Illinois at 11-3. Tomorrow, it’s an another early 10am game against the 1-8 University of Hartford Hawks. My guess is that with the loss to Army, the boys will be geared up against Hartford, 1-8 notwithstanding.
Go Illini!
The things you learn from your elders
On a different note, I had lunch today with two professor emeriti. When one of them heard about my interest in Illini baseball, he told me he used to watch the Illinois baseball team in the 1950s. He said they would play in a field in the north part of campus near where Beckman is now.
Apparently, the University of Illinois had to go through a lot of legal red tape to decommission that field. The person who had originally donated that land had stipulated that it be used for baseball or athletics.
The way I heard it today, once the donor passed on, the U of I finally got their way moved the park to where it is now and developed the north land for what it is now the Engineering Quad.