The early season travel schedule for the Illini baseball team has been rigorous. Illinois has already made trips to Florida, Texas and South Carolina, and planned to leave Champaign at 5 a.m. Thursday for Oregon.
The travel isn’t going to stop during the next couple weeks: Illinois’ first 22 games are on the road.
The obvious disadvantage for the Illini is that they can’t schedule home games early in the year because of the unpredictability of the weather in Illinois. At times this year, the travel has taken a toll on the Illini.
Before shutting out St. John’s this past Friday, they’d given up 13 runs in their first two Friday games.
The Illini have made Thursday their travel day, which gives them a short week of practice. The Illini often arrive to their away destinations late Thursday night, and some members of the team admitted to being tired and flat when they got into Texas last week to play Gonzaga.
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This week, Illinois is spending an extra night in Oregon when the Illini compete at the Nike College Showcase, starting Friday, and are not returning until Monday afternoon. It’s not ideal for head coach Dan Hartleb, who doesn’t want the team to have to miss any classes. Illinois is losing a practice day because of it.
“It’s just what you have to do to play at some good academic institutions,” Hartleb said. “It’s part of keeping our guys in class. I think that’s very important that our guys are in class, and they do a good job as student-athletes.”
The wacky travel schedule sometimes requires that the Illini play four games in three days, though the players seem to like it and welcome playing a lot of games in a short period of time.
“Yeah, it’s a lot of baseball and nice weather. So the more games, I think, the better,” second baseman Reid Roper said.
The fast pace of games on the schedule has become common during Hartleb’s tenure at Illinois.
“It’s something we’ve done for years and things we’ll continue to do,” Hartleb said.
“Our guys are resilient. They want to be out on the field on a regular basis so they get their rest and they show up to the field to play every day.”
