The Illinois baseball team staged a remarkable comeback win against Louisiana-Lafayette in the first of four games last weekend, but the Illini were unable to finish the weekend on a winning note, losing three straight games.

The Illini were riding high with a three game winning streak heading into the Collegiate Baseball Classic and used its momentum to propel themselves to a 14-12 thrilling comeback win over the Ragin’ Cajuns of Louisiana-Lafayette University Friday night in San Antonio, Tex.

However, the winning streak and momentum would come to a halt the next day in a 9-3 loss to host Texas-San Antonio. The Illini would find themselves struggling the rest of the weekend, losing the final two games of the Classic to Notre Dame 4-2 and No. 15 Texas A&M; 11-1.

“We took a step backwards from where we were last weekend,” head coach Dan Hartleb said. “Outside of the first game we didn’t really swing the bats very well. You expect to improve this week but we didn’t do that this weekend.”

Illinois found itself down 8-0 to the Ragin’ Cajuns after only four innings of play, but the Illini never gave up. Trailing 11-4 going into the top of the seventh inning the Illinois’ bats broke loose, rallying the Illini to a seven-run seventh to tie the game.

The Illini bats weren’t done yet, the following inning redshirt freshman centerfielder Joe Bonadonna came through with a two-run double to give the Illini its first lead of the game 13-11. After the Cajuns cut the Illini lead to one in their half of the inning, sophomore catcher Lars Davis provided the Illini with an insurance run in the top of the ninth inning. Senior reliever Matt Whitmore recorded his second save in the bottom of the ninth to preserve the Illini’s 14-12 win.

Davis and junior left fielder Ryan Snowden lead the Illini in the comeback with their first three-hit games of the season. Davis also added two RBI’s while Snowden scored two of the Illini’s 14 runs.

“We showed a lot of heart coming and battling,” Snowden said. “We were all really up and I thought after that game the weekend would go well. We had some momentum going for us, but it just didn’t work out for us.”

Coming off the dramatic come-from-behind victory the Illini entered Saturday night’s contest with the Roadrunners of Texas-San Antonio on a four-game winning steak.

With the game tied at two, the Illini fell apart during the middle innings, allowing three runs on three hits, two walks and two errors in the fourth inning that gave the Roadrunners a 5-2 lead.

Still trailing by three, Illinois gave up two more runs in the sixth inning and one more in the seventh to allow the Roadrunners to run away with a 9-3 win, snapping Illinois’ winning streak at four games.

“We didn’t pitch well over the weekend,” Hartleb said “Our pitchers gave up a lot of runs early and once we got down our hitters changed their approaches and tried to do things we hadn’t done all year and we weren’t able to come back.”

While the team’s defense and pitching let the Illini down in the loss against Texas-San Antonio, it was its offense that would be unable to come through the next night against Notre Dame.

Senior starting pitcher Brian Blomquist gave up two runs on three hits in the first inning but managed to settle down for the Illini, however, the team’s hitters couldn’t find the spark they needed.

The Illini were finally able to break through Notre Dame starting pitcher Tom Thornton in the eighth inning and push across two runs to cut the Irish lead to 4-2. But the Notre Dame bullpen shut the door on the Illini the rest of the way, ending Illinois’ attempt at another comeback and walking away with its fifth win of the season.

“We need to concentrate and improve,” Hartleb said. “Our pitchers have to have better command and our hitters have to understand that you have to be able to drive the pitches to all of the fields and not think every pitch is going to be right down the middle.”

Illinois had no time to rest after its second loss of the tournament with a quick turnaround the next day with a game against No. 15 Texas A&M; on Monday morning.

The Aggies entered the game losers of all three of its previous games of the Classic, but by the way they played Monday it would have been hard to tell.

Texas A&M; handed Illinois its worst loss of the season, beating the Illini 11-1 and tallying 16 hits on the Illini pitching staff. Illinois’ lone run of the game came on an RBI ground out by junior shortstop Shawn Roof in the fourth inning.

The three losses drop the Illini to 4-6 overall heading into its final week of practice before spring break.

Illinois will try to regain its winning form over the break with a lengthy six-game stay in Florida, including a game in Sarasota and five games in Bradenton.

“We have to get better as a team,” Snowden said. “Pitching, fielding and offensively we have to get better in all areas and try to come back next week and put some wins together and start another winning streak.”