May 14, 2002

Box Score

Bloomington, Ill. - The University of Illinois baseball team fell 5-3 to Illinois State University this afternoon on the campus of Illinois State. Illinois dropped to 31-15 while ISU improved to 22-27 on the year.

Illinois jumped on the board in the first inning when Andy Schutzenhofer, who walked with one out, scored on a two-out double off the bat of Luke Simmons. Illinois extended its lead to 2-0 in the fourth inning when Brandon Cashman hit a solo home run, his sixth of the year, over the 400-foot sign in centerfield. In the fifth, Illinois made it 3-0 when T.F. Meagher led off with a walk, advanced to second on a sacrifice from Pat Flynn and scored on an Andy Schutzenhofer RBI single.

ISU got on the board for the first time in the bottom of the sixth inning off Illinois reliever Ted Rowe. Jeremy Pickrel led off with a double and, after being sacrificed to third, came in on a ground ball to second to make the score 3-1. With two outs, Jake Perganson singled up the middle and Jon Peacock closed the lead to 3-2 when he followed Perganson with a run-scoring double. Illinois then went to the bullpen for Reilly Smith, who retired Mike Saunches to maintain the one-run lead.

ISU tied the game at three with a single run off Smith in the seventh before taking a lead for the first time in the bottom of the eight when Lance McMillan sent a sacrifice fly to deep center with the bases loaded off Dave Mazurek to give the Redbirds a 4-3 advantage. ISU added an insurance run later when a wild pitch plated another run to open a 5-3 lead.

Illini starter Andy Dickinson started and threw three innings, facing the minimum while striking out three to up his season total to 97, 11 short of tying Illinois' single-season strikeout record. Mazurek suffered the loss to fall to 1-2 on the year after allowing two runs on one hit in 1 1/3 innings of work. ISU reliever Steve Reyes earned the win after throwing four innings of scoreless relief.

Illinois returns to action tomorrow with a 5 p.m. game at Bradley before traveling to Iowa City this weekend to close out the Big Ten Conference regular season with a four-game series against Iowa.