The Illinois baseball team will make its second consecutive trip to the Sunshine State this weekend in hopes of capturing its first win of the season.

After returning home without a win last weekend the Illini became the first team in last eight years to come up empty in the win column after the first weekend of play. But they will have a chance this weekend to make up for a disappointing first weekend and also get a little revenge on the Bulls of South Florida.

The Illini (0-3) are set to square off against South Florida in a three game weekend set in Tampa, Fla.

But this won’t be the first meeting of the season between the schools. The Illini and Bulls have already hooked horns in the Illini’s first weekend of play at the Stetson Invitational. South Florida (4-6) defeated Illinois last Saturday 4-2.

“I thought there were some things we did well against South Florida,” head coach Dan Hartleb said. “They threw out a couple good pitchers against us. We kind of have an idea of what they will try to do against some of our hitters. We matched up pretty well with them and this should be a pretty competitive series.”

Illinois fell behind early in the first meeting and trailed 4-0 going into the seventh-inning, but still had plenty of chances to mount a comeback.

With the lead cut to 4-1 and the bases loaded in the bottom of the eighth-inning with no outs, Illini sophomore Lars Davis singled through the right side to bring home junior third baseman Mike Rohde and cut the lead to 4-2. However, on the same play junior designated hitter Chase Kliment was gunned down at home in a bang-bang play and senior first baseman Dave Schultz was thrown out trying to advance to third.

The double play allowed the Bulls to regain the momentum and pull out the victory over the Illini. Junior starting pitcher Jake Toohey was hung with the loss after four innings of work in which he gave up two runs.

“In the first game it was really more of a learning experience,” Davis said. “It was the first time a lot of the guys had played. We noticed how their hitters adjusted to different pitches and found some holes in their defense, which should allow us to run and steal a few bases for us.”

While the Illini lost the game, they were still able to discover a few positives. Junior reliever Brian Long had a strong showing against the Bulls in his first action as an Illini after transferring from Eastern Illinois. Long threw 3 1/3 shutout innings allowing only two hits in relief for club.

But after walking or hitting a total of 18 batters and committing nine errors in its first three games of the season the Illini realize they need improve on not giving its opponents free passes to the base paths and limiting mistakes in the field.

“Putting people on base was a huge problem for the pitchers, especially the last game,” Toohey said. “Guys just have to go out there and can’t worry about nitpicking around the plate. We can’t be scared to throw strikes and attack hitters. As long as the guys go out there and throw strikes we’ll be fine.”

If the Illini can limit its mistakes and take advantage of South Florida’s this weekend, the team is confident it can come away with its first victories of the season and get a little revenge on the Bulls.

The first game of the series begins tonight with the first pitch set for 6 p.m. and the two teams will play again on Saturday at noon and Sunday at 11 a.m.

“We’re really going to try to work hard to get those first wins,” Davis said. “I think once we get the first one it will start a roll of us. We know how South Florida plays; they are a very scrappy ball club. With the type of game that we know we can play we can come out with a couple of wins.”