The Illinois baseball team opened its Big Ten season with a win for the 11th time in the last 12 seasons this past weekend.

The Illini jumped off to a hot start and extended its winning streak to nine games, defeating Purdue 9-7 and 3-2 in the first two games of the series before dropping games three and four to the Boilermakers 10-4 and 9-4.

“I thought we played very hard the entire weekend regardless of what the score was,” head coach Dan Hartleb said. “I would just like to see us in a situation where you win the first two games to have a little bit more of a killer instinct. Hopefully, the next time we’re in this situation we can go out and set the tone and put us in a situation to win the series.”

Illinois took the field on a windy Friday night in front of a record setting crowd of 1,012 for a Big Ten home opener, and gave fans the opportunity to cheer early and cheer often.

After giving up two runs in the top of the first inning the Illini responded in its first appearance at the plate. Sophomore second baseman Ryan Hastings and senior outfielder Trevor Huisinga both capitalized on bases opportunities with singles that drove in two Illini runs each.

“The fan support was unbelievable,” junior shortstop Shawn Roof said. “It was kind of cold and windy and we weren’t expecting a lot, but the fans came out and helped us out a lot.”

Illinois would strike again in the next two innings with two RBI singles by senior first baseman Dave Schultz and a two RBI triple by junior outfielder Ryan Snowden to give the Illini a 9-4 lead.

Nine runs in the first three innings would be more than enough for senior pitcher Brian Blomquist, who, despite giving up six runs on nine hits in five innings pitched, evened his record at 2-2 for the season.

“Getting on the board early kind of shut them down,” Huisinga said. “They chipped away a little bit, but it was a big confidence booster for us knowing we can come out and stick it to teams.”

While Friday night was a slugfest, Saturday’s double-header began as a pitcher’s dual.

Junior starting pitcher Jake Toohey threw six solid innings, giving up only two runs, while senior closer Matt Whitmore picked up his sixth save of the season in the Illini’s 3-2 win in the first game of the double-header.

Toohey’s performance on the mound was backed-up by the Illini’s seven, eight and nine hitters, who reached base all but once in nine at bats and drove in all three Illini runs to give the Illini its ninth straight win.

“I’m very pleased with where we are in terms of strength up and down our order,” Hartleb said. “We have been able to get production from different guys each game. The bottom of our order was very good today and they drove in our runs and put us in position to win.”

The Illini’s longest winning streak since 2002 came to an end in game two of Saturday’s double-header as Purdue slugged out 10 runs on 13 hits to hand Illinois its first conference loss of the season.

Purdue continued its hot hitting the next day, cranking out nine runs on eight hits to earn the split with the Illini. Illinois and Purdue ended the weekend with identical 13-8 (2-2 Big Ten) records.

“We only had a seven-game winning streak last year,” Roof said. “Even though a winning streak is not always important, we still enjoy it, and are going to have to start another one.”