Ohio State Loses Finale to Illinois, 11-5 – Ohio State Buckeyes
5/8/2011 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
CHAMPAIGN, Ill.– Ohio State dropped the rubber game of its three-game series with Illinois Sunday, 11-5, and as a result remains in a third-place tie with Illinois and Purdue in the Big Ten Conference race. The three teams are all 10-8 in league play and will enter the final two weekends of the Big Ten season trailing Michigan State (13-5) and Minnesota (11-7). Penn State and Indiana are each 8-10; Northwestern and Iowa are 7-11; and Michigan is 6-12.
The Illini outhit the Buckeyes, 16-6, Sunday and leveraged the win behind a five-run third inning and a total of five runs in the fifth and sixth innings to build a 10-3 lead on the way to improving its record to 20-24 overall. Ohio State is now 21-21.
“The big inning is the story,” Ohio State coach Greg Beals said. “It is a different ball game without that five-spot in the third inning. But give their hitters credit. They played good baseball.”
Ohio State scored a run in the first when Brian DeLucia doubled and scored when Ryan Cypret reached on a one-out fielding error.
Illinois hit three singles in the second inning, but wasn’t able to score. The big reason why: left fielder David Corna’s right arm. He threw out Matt Dittman at the plate for the second out of the inning.
Illinois broke the game open with its five-run third inning to take a 5-1 lead and chase Ohio State starter Greg Greve (1-2) in the process. Two of the Illini runs were unearned.
The Buckeyes were hitless against Illinois starter Corey Kimes outside of DeLucia’s game-opening double until the fifth inning. That’s when Corna laced his second home run of the season to left field to close the deficit to 5-2.
But Illinois came right back with two runs in its half of the fifth, including another unearned run, to increase the lead to 7-2.
Tyler Engle and DeLucia then opened the Ohio State sixth with singles with DeLucia beating out a bunt. Then with two down, Josh Dezse drew his sixth walk of this series to load the bases and Matt Streng hit an infield single to drive in DeLucia and make the score 7-3. The Illini would get a force out at second to get out of the inning leaving the bases full.
A three run Illini sixth and another run in the seventh extended the home team’s lead to 11-3 and the Buckeyes would not recover. A couple of fielder’s choice plays in the eighth by Cypret and Dezse drove in two runs, but that would be it for the Ohio State offense.
“I wasn’t crazy about the attack in our offense,” Beals said. “We never got anything going or any momentum.”
Kimes pitched seven innings and allowed just the three runs on five hits. He struck out one and walked two while improving his record to 3-4 on the season.
Up next for Ohio State is a two-game home series against nationally ranked Oklahoma State Tuesday and Wednesday at Bill Davis Stadium, and then the final home weekend of the year this weekend against Iowa.
“The key is that we are ready for Iowa on the weekend,” Beals said. “Our season and our goals are set around the Big Ten weekends. This week with Iowa coming in will be big.”
Game Notes & Random Thoughts from the Ball Park:
- Warm greetings and lots of love to all the Mom’s, especially those associated with the baseball program who weren’t able to make the trip to Champaign to be with their boys.
- Happy Mother’s Day Kathy Beals, Sil Bobinski, Martha Bocock, Karen Bokor, Therese Borchers, Sharon Cabreros, Monica Carroll, Kathy Ciamacco, Julie Corna, Sue Cypret, Julie DeLucia, Carol Dezse, Brenda Engle, Lori Everhart, Faye Fathalikhani, Maila Goldberg, Sherri Greve, Julie Hallberg, Amy Hannahs, Gail Hayes, Beth Holick, Joan Hutton, Mary Jaskot, Karlene Keating, Vicki Kuchno, Suzanne Leach, Melanie McKinney, Sarah Newman, Marty Newman, Gail Redpath, Brenda Rucinski, Pam Solomon, Christine Stouffer, Robin Strayer, Lisa Streng, Renee Trimbur, Linda Welsh, Renee Wetzel, Sheila White and Sara Wolosiansky.
- A first-class move, whenever Ohio State is at Illinois on Mother’s Day, by coach Dan Hartleb and the Illinois baseball program: scarlet roses for the Ohio State Moms in attendance and orange roses for the Illinois Moms.
- Unnoticed until about four hours after Ohio State’s 12-7 Game 2 win: closer Josh Dezse gets a save. He struck out the only batter he faced with the bases loaded, two out and – here’s the reason for the save from Section 26.c.2 of the rule book – the tying run was on deck.
- The save was Dezse’s third of the season. The strikeout was his seventh in succession covering his last three appearances.
- Dezse struck out the first two batters he faced Sunday to bring his consecutive strikeout streak to nine over the course of four games. It ended when he hit the next batter.
- Matt Streng hit .429 in the series with 11 runs batted in.
- Available research right here right now indicates Streng’s seven RBI on Saturday are the most by a Buckeye in the last eight years, or at least since 2004. Further research is forthcoming.
- Soon-to-be-lawyer Chris Macke (2008 vs. Kansas) – he currently attends Capital Law School – and Akron volunteer assistant coach Justin Miller (2009 vs. Northwestern) each had six-RBI games for the Buckeyes, the previous high before Streng’s offensive outburst Saturday sparked by a three-run home run, a two-run blast and a two-run double.
- David Corna has thrown runners out at the plate vs. Illinois, Michigan State and Fresno State. He has five outfield assists.
- Brian DeLucia leads with eight outfield assists, including two this weekend when he doubled-up runners off first base to start atypical 9-3 double plays.
- Congratulations Pete Hanson, assistant coaches Tim Embaugh, Sean Byron and Kevin Burchand, and the 2011 Ohio State men’s volleyball team: National Champion!
###OhioStateBuckeyes.com###
