“(We had) great student turnout, athletes really supporting our team, so that was great and something really special that you can’t find too many places,” head coach Terri Sullivan said. “(I) just wish we would have done a little bit better on the field for the fans.”

Of all the family and fans in attendance, one face in the crowd attracted more attention than the rest.

Baseball Hall of Famer Billy Williams paid a visit to Urbana to cheer on one Illini in particular. The famous Chicago Cubs’ left fielder’s granddaughter, Nikki Simpson, is a freshman outfielder on the Fighting Illini softball team.

“This is the first time coming down to see her play actually in a game,” Williams said. “We just got back from Arizona, so we tried to catch some games on Big Ten Network, but they never did play. We saw a lot of games of other colleges, but we never did see Nikki play.”

Williams may have made a career out of baseball, but he’s not unfamiliar with softball.

“This is the only game I played in high school. I didn’t play baseball in high school. We played fast pitch softball just like that,” Williams said. “That’s how I learned to hit the ball I guess.”

Having her grandfather in attendance was a bright spot in the day for Simpson.

“I haven’t seen my grandpa since Christmas actually. It’s pretty cool, just him coming, knowing that like I can play and stuff,” Simpson said. “He’s very supportive of my softball career and all of my brothers and my cousins and all of our careers. He likes watching us play. It like brings back memories I guess.”

Despite the extra fan support and star power in the crowd, the Illini’s woes against ranked Big Ten teams continued.

“More than anything, we just needed to be fundamentally a little bit sounder and find a way, obviously, to stop Michigan from stealing the momentum back,” Sullivan said. “It just means we have to play better, and that’s what we need to do, and we will get back and practice doing that.”

Designated player Katrina Ross provided most of the Illinois offense, driving in four of the five Illini runs on the night. The senior belted her fifth homer of the season in game two.

“We work hard every day in and out at practice,” Ross said. “I mean, (we) take so many swings, so at the plate it just paid off.”

The offensive woes for the Orange and Blue were due in large part to the five runners left stranded on base in game two.

“Clutch hitting obviously is real key at this time of the year, and they got it and we didn’t,” Sullivan said. “We were where we wanted to be a few times, had the heart of our order up, but weren’t able to get that key hit today and really to get a lot of momentum.”

Illinois will have to put their struggles against ranked conference foes behind them quickly with No. 10 Northwestern coming to Urbana next weekend.

“We’ve got to string hits together. I mean, we’ve had a little defensive struggle, but we’re going to turn it around,” Ross said. “We’ve got Northwestern next weekend and Purdue (after that), so we’re coming out stronger.”