JACKSONVILLE, Ill. – The Illinois College baseball team rallied from a 4-1 deficit to tie the score in the top of the fifth inning, but Millikin University took over from there and earned the 9-4 non-conference victory on Wednesday at Joe Brooks Baseball Field. A pair of big calls both went the Big Blue's way to help MU get the win and improve to 2-7 on the year. IC falls to 5-7 with the loss.
Both defenses were sharp early on in the contest, so Millikin decided to forego Illinois College's defense by hitting three home runs on the day. The first came in the bottom of the second inning when Kyle Kane went yard on IC starting pitcher
Logan Love to make it 2-0. The Blueboys were able to undo some of that damage in the top of the third when a
Bailey Reed sacrifice fly drove in
Joe Paparelli to make it 2-1.
The first big call of the day came in the top of the fourth. With the bases loaded and one away,
Tim Sommerfeld lined a ball into left that was caught for the second out, but
Brendan Stanfield tagged at third and ran home to tie the score. When play was about to resume, Millikin's Evan Lawrence threw over to third and the home plate umpire called Stanfield out for leaving early, negating the run and leaving the Big Blue in front. The pain was then compounded in the bottom of the fourth when Jake Stanton crushed a two-run homer over the wall in left to make it 4-1.
The Blueboys showed some resiliency in the top of the fifth, loading the bases with two outs and ending Lawrence's day on the hill. Against reliever Connor Gross,
Dillon Hallemann tripled to the wall in right-center, scoring Reed, Stanfield and
Colin Dearing to make it 4-4. The tie game lasted only until the bottom of the inning when an Illinois College error helped Millikin get the lead back at 5-4.
The Big Blue extended the lead on Stanton's second homer of the day in the bottom of the sixth to make it 7-4, then tacked on another one in the bottom of the seventh on a RBI single. Though trailing, 8-4, in the eighth inning, the Blueboys had something going until another call went against them. With runners at first and third and one away, Paparelli grounded a ball right in front of home plate. Thinking it was a foul ball, no runners moved on the play and Millikin was able to complete a 2-6-3 double play to end the threat. The Big Blue then tacked on another insurance run in the bottom of the eighth and stranded a pair of IC runners in the ninth to close it out.
Illinois College outhit Millikin in the game, 12-11. Paparelli,
Cade Hennemann and
Grant Argyilan all had two hits apiece for the Blueboys. Love took the loss for IC, going 6.2 innings in defeat.
Kole Lowry had two strikeouts in his 1.1 innings of mop-up duty.
The Blueboys continue a long stretch of home games at Joe Brooks Field on Saturday, hosting a doubleheader against Northland College starting at 12 p.m.
