Illini baseball program signs eight during 2011 recruiting season

Last week, FightingIllini.com reported on Coach Hartleb and Co.’s successful recruiting trip.  When all was said and done, eight high school players had signed letters of intent to the University of Illinois. It breaks down like this:  Illinois recruited five pitchers, one catcher, one shortstop and one outfielder.  Of the pitchers, three are lefties.  Two [...]

Streator’s Nagle signs letter of intent

The Bloomington Pantagraph has run a story on Ryan Nagle who has just signed a letter of intent with the University of Illinois.  Nagle is a senior at Streator High School.  Nagle stressed that education was a big part of his decision for his pick of Illinois over his other choices: “It was just mainly [...]

Catching up in the new year

Maybe it’s a little for this but Happy New Year!  It has been a couple weeks since I posted and I do apologize for that. One month from yesterday, the Illini baseball team will be playing in their first game of the 2011 season.  It’s hard to believe.  I remind baseball fans from here who [...]

Recruiting rumors

This hasn’t been confirmed by the UI yet but the Lake Zurich Courier reports that two players have committed to play for Illinois.  Highland Park’s Jason Goldstein and Stevenson’s Adam Walton have made verbal commitments to play for the Illini.  Goldstein is a catcher and by some reports is “scary good”.   Walton is an infielder.  [...]

Illini sign six recruits: “Pure athletes” says Coach Hartleb

Yesterday, the Illinois baseball coaches announced the culmination of all their recruiting efforts from 2010.  The net result?  Six more recruits signed letters of intent to play for the University of Illinois including yes, one more Parr brother and the #1 ranked player in the state. Coach Hartleb described the class of 2011 as “one [...]

Illini coaches recruit four more

With the baseball season over and nothing better to do (I’m kidding there), the Illinois coaching staff have gone off and signed up some more players for the team.  Last week, they announced that four players have signed letters of intent to play baseball for the University of Illinois.  Most notably was the announcement that [...]

Illinois Baseball Recruit Six

It’s that time of year.  Since practice was over in early October, the coaching staff have been busy talking to possible recruits.  Now we get to see the fruits of their labor.  Last week, Coach Hartleb announced that six players have signed national letters of intent.  And let’s get this out of way… they’ve signed [...]

Barrington senior makes a verbal commitment

Some news comes over the wire from the Daily Herald that informs us of Robby McDonnell’s verbal commitment to play for the University of Illinois.  McDonnell is a senior at Barrington (IL) High School.  He’s lefthanded pitcher and looks pretty good.  He’s certainly had interest from plenty of schools including Minnesota, Iowa, Miami (Ohio) and [...]

Meet a few of the new Illini!

At practice the last few days, I got a chance to see and even meet a few of the new Illinois baseball players. Matt Milroy will certainly be in Illinois’ plans for next year.  A right-handed pitcher rumored to have a devastating fastball, Milroy was recruited from Marmion Academy High School in Aurora, Illinois.  He [...]

Casey Crosby: The one that got away

Mlive.com has a good piece on Casey Crosby.  For those Illini fans who tried to forget, Crosby was the Illini baseball recruit who got drafted in the fifth round in 2007 and took the money and ran.  Not that blame him… it was a whopping $750,000 signing bonus that lured him to Detroit. Essentially, 6’5” [...]