It shouldn’t be a surprise, but Illinois first baseman Drake Westcott was named Big Ten Player of the Week yesterday. Spurring the Illini to a three-game sweep over Michigan State, Wescott hit the cover off the ball last weekend including five homeruns.
Westcott’s weekend stats: 8 for 15 with five home runs, 10 rbis and 8 runs scored.
Westcott hit three bombs on Saturday and added two more on Sunday. It doesn’t show in the box score but between Saturday’s and Sunday’s games, he had three long fly outs that were quite close to the wall.
Imagine if the wind was blowing out this weekend.
Westcott currently has 17 homers for the season. Right now, that ranks second all-time only to Bren Spillane’s season record of 23. And speaking of Spillane, Drake Westcott is currently tied with him for homers during Big Ten season with a total of 10.
The analogy between Westcott and Spillane is a good one. Spillane played first base like Westcott. And like with Westcott, I remember the feeling that anything could happen when Bren Spillane was at bat especially a long fly.
Congrats to Drake Westcott!
A few photos from the last weekend
I was out for the exciting Friday game which was won 10-9 by Ryan Moerman’s walkoff game winner. I got back into town just in time for Saturday’s game and boy, am I glad!
Drake Westcott’s fireworks show ensured a 14-7 victory over the Spartans. Overshadowed in the whole deal, was that Camden Janik hit a grand slam.
Sunday, it was all Illini as the good guys hit six homers (two from Drake and one each from Camden Janik, Branden Comia, Jacob Schroeder and Ryan Moerman).
More photos from Saturday and Sunday as well as the whole 2023 home season can be found at the IBR photo gallery
The bullpen was excellent as they allowed just two hits and no runs in four plus innings.
Nice work on the sweep, Illini!!