Ohio State Baseball Defeats Illinois, 10-7, to Take Second Game of Two-Game Series – Ohio State Buckeyes
4/8/2007 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
April 8, 2007
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CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – The Ohio State baseball team defeated Illinois, 10-7, Sunday in the second game of a doubleheader at Illinois Field. Illinois defeated the Buckeyes, 8-5, in game one.
The four-game series was cut to two games after near-freezing temperatures forced the cancellation of games one and two Friday and Saturday.
Ohio State improved to 18-5 overall and 4-2 in Big Ten action, while Illinois fell to 11-12 overall and 3-3 in the conference. The Buckeyes will play a home non-conference game Wednesday vs. Miami (Ohio) at 6:35 p.m. at Bill Davis Stadium before playing host to Michigan Friday-Sunday (April 13-15) in a key Big Ten home series at Bill Davis Stadium.
Opposite of game one, the Buckeyes jumped on top of Illinois early in game two by scoring two runs in the first and three in the second to take a 5-0 lead after 1.5 innings.
Jacob Howell (Sr., Ashland, Ohio/Ashland) and Matt Angle (Whitehall, Ohio/Whitehall-Yearling) led off the game with back-to-back singles and moved to second and third after an Eric Fryer (Jr., Reynoldsburg, Ohio/Reynoldsburg) sacrifice bunt. Justin Miller (So., Dayton, Va./Turner Ashby) followed the sacrifice with a two-RBI double to right center to make it 2-0 after a half inning of play.
In the second inning, red-shirt freshman Zach Hurley (Springboro, Ohio/Springboro) and Jason Zoeller (Sr., Verona, Pa./Shady Side Academy) led off the inning with singles with Hurley advancing to third on Zoeller’s hit after an error by the left fielder. Freshman Cory Kovanda (Columbus, Ohio/Worthington Kilbourne) followed Zoeller’s hit with a perfectly executed sacrifice squeeze to make it 3-0. Howell followed the squeeze with a single up the middle to score Zoeller and after a stolen base by Howell, Fryer singled to make it 5-0.
Illinois responded in the bottom of the second inning, scoring three runs to make it a 5-3 game. The Fighting Illini sliced another run off the OSU lead by scoring one in the bottom of the third for a 5-4 game after three innings.
The Buckeyes stretched their lead to 8-4 with three runs in the top of the fourth. Zoeller singled to start off the inning and Howell followed with a one out single. Angle then bunted the ball just past the pitched toward a charging second baseman. Howell and the second baseman collided and the umpire ruled the collision was unintentional to load the bases. Fryer then singled to left to drive in two runs and give OSU a 7-4 lead. After a double steal, Miller grounded out to short to drive in Angle and make it 8-4.
The Illini wouldn’t go quietly as they tacked on a run in the bottom of the fourth to cut the OSU lead to 8-5 and then pushed two more across in the bottom of the sixth to make it an 8-7 affair.
Ohio State gave itself a little breathing room with two runs in the top of the seventh. Two walks and a sacrifice bunt to start off the inning put the Illini in a hole. After an intentional walk to load the bases, Angle followed with a single up the middle to score two runs and put the Buckeyes up 10-7 heading into the last half inning of play.
Sophomore J.B. Shuck (So., Galion, Ohio/Galion) started the game for the Buckeyes and pitched three innings. Shuck gave up four runs, three earned, on seven hits. Sophomore Josh Barrera (Somerset, Ohio/Sheridan) relieved Shuck in the fourth and went two innings, giving up three earned runs on six hits. Junior Rory Meister (Mansfield, Ohio/Mansfield Madison) relieved Barrera with two on and no outs in the bottom of the sixth. Meister pitched the final two innings to earn his third save of the season. He gave up no runs on one hit. Barrera earned the win to improve to 4-0 on the year.
Scott Shaw started for Illinois and went just 1.2 innings before OSU knocked him out of the game, giving up five earned runs in his short stint. Illinois used four pitchers on the day.
The Buckeyes and Illini each had 14 hits in the game.
