Just over a year ago there was no club baseball team at the University, which astonished sophomore Cary Bolnick and junior Jay Goldberg. They decided to do something about it; the two high school friends vowed to take the lead and create Illini club baseball.

“One day, Jay and I were shooting some hoops, talking about sports, and it just came to us. We should start a club baseball team,” Bolnick said.

Since its creation in 2004, club baseball has made some great strides in member recruitment, playing facilities and team successes. With a current record of 8-3, the squad of Illinois students expects to qualify for regionals this season in only its second year of existence.

The club baseball team, which now has around 30 members who were chosen from tryouts, began its recruitment with an Activity Day booth at the Union.

The booth didn’t bring in many members, so Bolnick and Goldberg decided to approach the varsity baseball coach to see if they could give information to players trying out to walk on to the varsity team. That was the catalyst to what would turn out to be a player-recruiting goldmine.

“We had basically everyone who was cut from the varsity team come to try out,” Bolnick said. “The best part about it was we knew that these players were dedicated and serious about playing baseball.”

With recruits from Quad Day, Activity Day and varsity baseball tryouts, the 30 members of the club team play a good brand of baseball. Goldberg said the players’ goal was to win games and that they take the team very seriously.

The team holds practice three to four days a week year-round in various facilities around campus. Goldberg said finding practice facilities was difficult because there are no baseball fields on campus aside from the varsity field, which is taken by the Illinois baseball team.

“We practice wherever we can,” Goldberg said. “We have practiced at TK Wendell’s softball fields, we’ve practiced at the Armory, and we currently practice at a park off campus in Champaign.”

All the practice appears to have paid off for the young club baseball franchise as they were invited to join the National Club Baseball Association (NCBA) earlier this year. The team is now a member of the Great Lakes West Conference of the association, in which they currently hold the top spot, sporting a 6-0 conference record.

Club baseball provides a medium between the strict schedule of a varsity sport and the lack of competition in softball leagues. Most of the players on the team said they wouldn’t even be playing baseball right now if there wasn’t a club team.

“Once you get into college, its either serious [varsity] ball or drunken softball leagues with older men,” said Ryan Jensen, a third baseman and pitcher for the team. “It’s great that we have a club team here. It’s a lot of fun, and I get an opportunity to compete at a pretty high level playing the game that I love.”

Overall, Bolnick and Goldberg are happy with the organization they started. Member fees and fundraising such as magazine and victory card sales have kept the team financially afloat, paying for uniforms, travel and field rentals.

The club baseball team appears to be on its way up, and Bolnick and Goldberg expect a pool of at least 60 serious ball players per freshman class to show interest in the future. With that many new students displaying interest every year, club baseball might be here to stay.

“It would make me real happy to be able to come back in 10 years and see that the team is still here. It would be awesome to know that something I was a part of starting could become a permanent part of the University,” Goldberg said.

The Illinois club baseball team plays its home games at Prairie Park (home of the Urbana High School Tigers) and has a double header starting at 11 a.m. this Sunday.