Freshmen pair key victory over SIU-E

Boy, that was a close one!

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Josh Parr drove in the winning run in the 10th inning

Down 4-1, Illinois pulled ahead in the fifth by a run only to lose the lead in the next inning.  The Illini quickly tied it up and that’s where it stood till the tenth inning when a pair of freshman pushed us over the top.  With one out, Willie Argo tripled to right field.  The next batter, Josh Parr drove him in with a base knock.

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LF Willie Argo does his best but can’t get to SIU-E’s Dustin Brooks’ blast over the left field wall.

It was rough going at first though.  Coach Hartleb used a committee of eight pitchers with Phil Haig getting the first shift.  Haig entered the game with a 1.67 ERA but it’s a whole lot higher now.  He allowed 3 runs on four hits including a triple and a homerun.

Kevin Manson, who we haven’t seen a lot of recently, pitched the second inning.  Manson got off with just one run though he didn’t look much better after the Cougars were done with him slapping him around for three hits.

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Phil Haig got the start but had a pretty short leash

The Illini pitching finally settled down and the offense started heating up.  In the fifth, they rallied for four runs to pull ahead.   With runners on first and third, the Cougar infielders were pulled in.  Batter Craig Lutes must have seen this because he blooped a hit just over the thirdbaseman’s head.  That made the score 5-4.  Lutes was 2 for 5 for the night.

Two more Cougar runs in the sixth put the bad guys up by a run.  In the seventh, Aaron Johnson continued his clutch hitting by hitting a base hit scoring Brandon Wikoff.  For the game, Johnson was 3 for 5 with 3 rbis.

Illinois finally won it in the tenth with Parr’s rbi single scoring Argo.

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Josh Parr and signature hop over the baseline

It was a long game, 10 innings but also 3 hours, too.  It was a rollercoaster game and I think we did good to come out on the winning side.  Final Score Illinois 7 SIU-E 6

Box Score

More photos at the photo gallery

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