Editor’s note: The Daily Illini sports desk sits down Sunday nights and decides which Illinois athlete or coach is our Illini of the Week. Student-athletes and coaches are evaluated by individual performance and contribution to team success.

Reid Roper could barely hold back a smile when he took off his helmet and touched home plate. He touched helmets with his teammates as they offered him congratulations before he put his head down and jogged back toward the Illini dugout. 

He’d been waiting for this for more than a year. 

“This may be it,” said Roper, still beaming after Saturday’s 6-4 victory over Purdue. “This may be one of my biggest hits as an Illini.” 

Roper’s two-run home run in the eighth inning would eventually be the game winner for Illinois. It was Roper’s second home run in as many days, but before then, he hadn’t hit one since last season in his first career game.

Assistant coach Eric Snider described the Illini second baseman as quiet and reserved, yet as intense and competitive as anyone else on the field. After Roper steps out of his black car with a license plate “ROPE 92” and steps onto the field, he rarely shows any emotion. When Roper hadn’t been smiling recently, Snider and head coach Dan Hartleb noticed it, because Roper’s performance at the plate during the year hadn’t given him reason to be happy. 

He came into this past weekend’s three-game series with Purdue scuffling with a .231 batting average and .302 on-base percentage, and it had been 10 days since his last hit. Roper can recall instances last season when he would struggle for three games at the most, but this was easily the worst stretch of his career — he had gone 3-for-37 since March 16. 

Roper couldn’t explain why. He hits near the bottom of the order, so he received plenty of fastballs and strikes to hit. 

He was named a Louisville Slugger Freshman All-American by Collegiate Baseball last season after hitting .293 with a .396 on-base percentage. His father is a high school baseball coach, so he is used to constant instruction and is usually able to get out of slumps rather quickly. Roper has a high awareness of what he’s doing in the batter’s box and makes adjustments all the time, so this was frustrating for him to not be able to correct it.

“Sometimes guys internalize so much, and it eats them up because they want to do so well,” Hartleb said. “Yet their hard work doesn’t show in a game situation.”

When Roper struggles, he starts messing with his hands. 

Sometimes, he will move them up and hold the bat high. If that doesn’t work, it’s time to move them down a bit. 

At the beginning of the season, he said he thought his hands were a little high, and he got caught out on his front foot, which resulted in too many lazy ground balls to second base.

Roper is also the Illini closer, and never let his struggles at the plate carry over to the mound. He has a 2.79 ERA in 9 and 2/3 innings.

“He’s not a person that gets flustered a lot,” Hartleb said.

Roper busted out of his slump in an emphatic way against Purdue. He went 7-for-14 with three home runs, five runs and eight RBIs. It bumped his average up 40 points to .271. 

The rest of the Illini have seen it before in batting practice, the way Roper crushes the ball and makes everyone turn their heads. Left fielder Jordan Parr even suggested that Roper may have the most natural power on the team. 

“There’s times where he hits the ball, and it’s literally like a sledgehammer hitting a brick,” Hartleb said. “He’s got such strong hands and forearms, and I think he has a lot of natural power. … He could be a major threat in RBI situations.”

Roper stands at about 6-feet but weighs close to 210 pounds, and most of his weight is in his lower body. His family is built in the same way, including his brother, Ryne, who has committed to play baseball at Illinois next season and is even bigger than his older brother. 

In 2011, Roper Reid was the Prep Baseball Report’s No. 5 baseball prospect in Illinois before redshirting his first season following knee surgery. 

He began his career in 2012 against Notre Dame when he doubled in his first at-bat and hit a home run in the next. It looked as if the Illini had found another power hitter. Roper hit 10 home runs during his senior year in high school and hit some in summer baseball before his freshman season.

But Roper would only hit that one home run, which shocked Roper. It was a huge relief for him when he hit his first of the season in the first game of the series Friday, but the wind was blowing out on a cold and tough day for pitchers. Illinois scored 17 runs on 20 hits, so that home run could’ve been a bit of a fluke.

Roper said Saturday was much more important for him. He stood in the on-deck circle with Illinois trailing 4-3 in the eighth inning before David Kerian singled home the game-tying run. He said it felt like a weight lifted off his shoulder, and now he felt much more relaxed as he waited for a new pitcher. The left-handed Roper has been especially terrible against left-handed pitchers this season, so Purdue brought in left-hander Tim McElroy, who retired Roper the day before; however, Hartleb never thought about pinch hitting for Roper. 

He stood in the batter’s box timing every warm-up throw from McElroy, remembering how he got himself out the day before on the fastball.

On McElroy’s second pitch, Roper got another fastball that he lined over the right field fence for the game-winning home run. 

Snider said that’s the pitch he has too often seen Roper pull foul. Roper followed up his performance by going 3-for-5 on Sunday, adding his third home run of the weekend.

“Haven’t seen a smile on his face all year up until this weekend,” Snider said. 

Jamal can be reached at [email protected] and @jamalcollier.