Four and Ohhhh! Illini off to a spectacular start!

Johnson, McDonnell, Kravetz and Jay get the job done at the Cardinal Classic If there was any question as to Illinois baseball’s standing in the preseason polls, they have been put to rest.  The Illini baseball team shone in the Lamar University’s Cardinal Classic down in Beaumont, Texas winning all…

Continue reading

Pitching previews: A diplomatic solution to a nice pitching dilemma

The Fighting Illini baseball program has been doing position-by-position previews in the last few days on the fightingillini.com website.  The previews of the actual starting position players haven’t been too surprising but I was wondering what would happen when it came to the pitchers.  Illinois may be in the envious…

Continue reading

Photos of Game 3 of Illini Baseball Orange and Blue Series

Anthony Drago takes a cut in Game 3 of the Orange and Blue Series on Friday Friday was third and final game of the Orange and Blue Fall Ball World Series.  What a beautiful day it was for baseball!  The late afternoon game with temps hovering in the low 80s…

Continue reading

Reid Roper awarded Honker of the Year

This probably shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone following Reid Roper’s summer up in Rochester but it has recently been announced that he has been named “Honker of the Year” by his summer league team the Rochester Honkers. Not only did Roper become the Honkers’ all-time leader in hits,…

Continue reading

Illinois close out weekend with Purdue victorious, 8-3

Casey Fletcher gets congrats from the batboy in the 3rd inning while Ronnie Muck watches on On Sunday, it was a warm afternoon and the Illinois bats were pretty hot too.  With the help of thirteen hits, the home team scored eight runs to defeat the Purdue Boilermakers 8-3 in…

Continue reading

Illinois Baseball finish off Xavier 3-2, now above .500

After 13 innings and four hours of play, a baseball coach might look to some unconventional methods to do what it takes to win a ballgame.  That occurred in Sunday’s game against Xavier when Illinois Coach Dan Hartleb called for the suicide squeeze with Zack Kolakowski (left) at the bat…

Continue reading

McDonnell, Goldstein give home crowd a treat against Indiana State, 8-0

Rob McDonnell notches his first college win Behind the strong pitching of Rob McDonnell and the bat of catcher Jason Goldstein, the Illinois baseball (8-9) won their home opener at Illinois Field today against the Indiana State Sycamores (14-3).  A common thread of discussion among the crowd was that pitching…

Continue reading

Fletcher caps off the Orange and Blue series in a big way

Casey Fletcher goes yard to win it for the Orange Team… …giving them something to finally cheer about this week I have to hand it to the Orange Team.  They were outplayed for two and half games this week but they really know how to cap off the Orange and…

Continue reading