West Lafayette, Indiana proved unkind to Illinois (18-23, 4-11) over the weekend. The Illini were swept by the Purdue Boilermakers (25-17, 8-8) in a crucial Big Ten series. The sweep guaranteed the Illini to finish conference play with a losing record.
The Illini appeared to finally hit their stride, having won three of four games before this past weekend. Purdue derailed Illinois’ momentum by sweeping the series-opening doubleheader Friday before snatching the finale Saturday.
Illinois currently sits one spot out of the Big Ten Tournament. At No. 13, Illinois sits 2.5 games behind Penn State (20-24, 6-10) with six conference games to go. With fewer opportunities to gain wins, the Illini will need to tune themselves up in this week’s non-conference games.
Minimal run support
The second game of Friday’s doubleheader was a pitchers’ duel between Illinois sophomore right-hander Karley Yergler and Purdue senior left-hander Kendall Klochack. Softball games typically take seven innings to complete. This one required 12 and lasted almost three hours.
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Yergler went all the way, pitching 11.2 innings and striking out four. Purdue junior outfielder Khloe Banks singled up the middle with two outs in the 12th inning to score the game’s only run. The Illini reached base 11 times and only tallied one extra base hit: a leadoff double by senior left fielder Stevie Meade. In fact, Illinois only had four extra base hits the entire weekend.
The Illini had a hard time bringing runners home throughout the series. It was especially prevalent in the second game, but it was a black eye on the entire weekend. Finding a way to get an extra hit to bring runners home is going to be paramount if Illinois wants to win games.
Prone to the big inning
Twice over the weekend, Illini pitching surrendered a crooked number that put away games. Errors also began to resurface. In both Friday’s opener and Saturday’s finale, an error directly resulted in a run.
Game one was tied 2-2 going into the bottom of the fifth, but after freshman right-hander London Park loaded the bases, the Boilermakers brought three runs in. A similar situation occurred in the third game when a 3-2 Illini lead turned upside down late.
Freshman Ella Cushing put Illinois in front in the top of the sixth with a three-run bomb, but the lead quickly vanished in the bottom half of the inning. Purdue put four runs on the board to jump in front 7-3, and ultimately earn the sweep.
The Illini will have to find a way to avoid big innings from the opposition, which has been a recurring theme in their losses this season.
This week’s games
Illinois will play two midweek non-conference games, the first of which being on Tuesday against DePaul (14-27) at 4 p.m. The back-to-back will be capped off with a Wednesday evening tilt against Northern Illinois (17-23) beginning at 5 p.m.
Both of these games are great opportunities for the Illini to grab wins before going on the road to face the Rutgers Scarlet Knights (17-31, 1-14). That will be their final road trip of the season, and their penultimate series of Big Ten play.
