On Saturday, Illinois baseball traveled to Grand Park in Westfield, Indiana to take on the Butler Bulldogs in their first fall game. Robin and I decided to make a road trip of it and boy, we’re sure glad we did! With some help of some new Illinois players, the Illini won 16-6!
Robin and I were pretty impressed with the Grand Park facility. It is indeed grand as it is 400 acres and contains 26 ball fields. Before the Illinois-Butler matchup, we were driving through the facility and a ball bounced on the road fifteen feet ahead of our car. Whoever hit that homerun needs to get recruited, stat!
Big contributors to the 16-6 win included Moline freshman who played second base. Harding went 4 for 5 with two doubles. He seems to be the kind of player to make things happen. Above, he hits his first double of the day.
Cub draftee Zac Taylor may have been our centerfielder last year but now we have Taylor Jackson tending the garden. A junior transfer from Kirkwood Community College, Taylor hit a bases-loaded triple to help the cause. Jackson wasn’t the newbie to hit a triple. Brother Rice recruit Danny Doligale hit a two-run triple as well.
Take a look at these pitchers. We’ll be seeing more of them. Parkland transfer Ty Rybarczyk (left) and Cole Kirschsieper (right) each hurled an inning to help Illinois toward a win.
Here is the entire gallery of photos from Saturday.
It’s a new school year so I’ve created a new photo gallery page for the 2019-2020 season. You can find all of the photos for this season there. That includes some photos I took at practice last week.
Congrats to the Illini on their first win!