The Fighting Illini baseball continued their conference-only schedule this weekend with a unique pod format, hosting both Michigan State and Purdue in a four-game series for each team at Illinois Field in Champaign.
The pod concept was adopted this year to help alleviate travel for teams with the pandemic still present but showing signs of slowing down. The Illini faced the Spartans on Friday and Saturday and fell behind early in both games.
On Friday evening, the Illini climbed out of an early 4-0 deficit after the second inning to score the final 13 runs in the game enroute to a 13-4 win. Cole Kirschsieper got the win out of the bullpen to move to 2-3 on the season.
Kirschsieper came on in relief of Andrew Hoffmann, who lasted just three innings. Kirschsieper pitched the remaining six innings and was given a ton of support on offense as he kept the Spartans off the scoreboard for the duration.
“Our pitching was really good tonight. Kirschsieper was awesome and only gave up one hit. It was really good to see that performance from Cole out of the bullpen,” Illinois head coach Dan Hartleb said following the game/
Ryan Hampe, who continues to hit the ball with precision, had a bases-clearing double and finished with four RBI.
In Saturday’s contest, the Illini fell behind 2-0 again in the first inning but got one of those back in the bottom half of the inning. Some shoddy fielding by Michigan State opened the floodgates for the Illini, who scored two runs in the second as a result to take the lead for good. The Illini would add four runs in the fifth inning and six runs in the seventh to win the game handily 15-8.
Kellen Sarver, who homered in the game, was joined by Jacob Campbell with a three-hit day. Nathan Lavender survived the rocky start in the first inning to get the win and moves to 4-0 on the season.
Sunday and Monday saw the Illini shift to playing the Purdue Boilermakers, and just like the first two games of the weekend, Illinois fell behind 2-0 in the first inning but unlike those games, couldn’t muster the offense to pull out the win. Purdue won the game 6-4, but the Illini showed resolve the entire way.
Xavier Watson hit his first career home run for the Illini, while Cam McDonald went deep with one man on to tie the game 4-4 in the bottom of the eighth inning.
However, the Boilermakers would take the lead in the top of the ninth and would hold on for the win. Ryan Kutt (0-4) took the loss for the Illini.
In the weekend finale on Monday, Purdue scored early and often in defeating the Illini 20-6. The Boilermakers scored the first eight runs of the game, chasing Illini starter Aidan Maldonado, who lasted just an inning while giving up five runs, all earned.
Sarver and DH Justin Janas each had two hits for Illinois (10-14).
Illinois will return to the conventional three-game weekend format next weekend when they travel to West Lafayette, Indiana looking for revenge against Purdue. The Illini then will have another pod weekend the first weekend in May when they will play both Michigan and Northwestern in the Evanston pod.
