When senior Joe Bonadonna finally leaves the Illinois baseball program, the Minnesota coaching staff will undoubtedly breathe a sigh of relief.

“It’s really just a coincidence,” Bonadonna said. “I take every Big Ten series the same, and it’s just happened that I’ve played pretty well against them.”

Bonadonna always seems to enjoy a big weekend when the Illini play Minnesota. In 2006, his freshman season, he went 5-for-9, recorded four RBIs and scored a game-winning run in the series. Last year, he batted 7-for-8 with an RBI and scored a run in a Sunday doubleheader. So when the No. 23 Gophers (22-10, 6-2 Big Ten) come to Champaign this weekend, Bonadonna hopes to put forth another solid outing.

But Illinois head coach Dan Hartleb said the Illini won’t take this series unless they can straighten out the bump they seem to have currently hit. Illinois (21-10, 6-3) lost 5-1 to No. 29 Eastern Illinois on Tuesday and also lost 9-6 at Southern Illinois on Wednesday night.

“Fundamentally we were terrible,” Hartleb said of the two losses. “Every little thing that we’ve done to be successful to this point we stopped doing.”

Balance is the key to Minnesota’s offense, with five Gophers already having recorded more than 20 RBIs on the season. Redshirt freshman second baseman A.J. Pettersen leads the team with a .395 average and has 26 RBIs on the year, while junior Derek McCallum, who also plays the infield, is batting .386 with seven homers and 44 RBIs. Also impressive for Minnesota has been sophomore outfielder Michael Kvasnicka, who has three home runs and 32 RBIs while hitting .374.

“They’re a very good team,” said Hartleb. “You look at their stats and what they’ve done up to this point, and they’re going to be as good a team as we’ve played this year.”

The Illini will look to their veterans to try and out score the Gophers — one of whom is Bonadonna who, despite batting a modest .232 on the season, broke out in his team’s two victories over Michigan last weekend. Bonadonna hit 4-for-12 and racked up six RBIs in three contests against the Wolverines.

“When you get hot you’ve got to take it, and when you’re cold you just got to take and deal with it,” Bonadonna said. “You’ve got to deal with the streaks, that’s baseball. Right now I’m feeling pretty good at the plate.”

Hartleb said that Bonadonna and his fellow upperclassmen, like shortstop Brandon Wikoff and third baseman Dominic Altobelli, are one reason he believes the Illini will contend for the Big Ten title. Wikoff is hitting a sizzling .389 on the season and has an on-base percentage of .465.

“We need all the upperclassmen to step up,” Hartleb said. “This is an important time of year, and (the Big Ten race) is still tight. A win in this series would put us in great position.”

The Gophers are currently tied atop the Big Ten standings with Indiana, while the Illini are tied with Ohio State for third.

The usual pitching rotation is expected to go for Illinois, with sophomore lefty Phil Haig slated to start Friday night. Haig is 3-2 on the year with a 3.92 ERA. He pitched well against Michigan in last weekend’s series opener but suffered the loss after giving up three runs in seven innings of work. Senior Ben Reeser will take to the mound Saturday, and freshman Bryan Roberts will pitch the series finale. Sophomore reliever Lee Zerrusen said the responsibility of slowing down the Gopher offense falls not just on the pitchers but on the infielders.

“(Minnesota) is like us,” Zerrusen said. “They don’t hit a lot of home runs so that puts a lot of pressure on the first, second and third basemen. They steal a lot of bases so we’ve got to put good holds on the runners.”