Champaign, Ill. - The University of Illinois baseball team split a Sunday doubleheader with Northwestern, dropping the first game 3-1 before rallying in game two to win 5-4. Illinois currently stands at 23-12 overall and 8-10 in the Big Ten while Northwestern is 17-20 overall and 8-10 in Conference play.

Illinois fell behind early in game two by a score of 4-2 after three innings with the only runs coming on a solo home run by Luke Simmons in the second inning and a Wildcat wild pitch that scored Andy Schutzenhofer in the third. Meanwhile, Illini starter Justin Olson was hit for four runs on six hits in 2 2/3 innings of work before being pulled in favor of Tim Gorski.

While Gorski proceeded to throw 4 1/3 innings of scoreless relief, the Illinois offense rallied off NU reliever James Happ in the fifth inning. Schutzenhofer and Drew Davidson led off the inning with back-to-back singles and, after two outs were recorded, Joe Parenti looped a single to center that scored Schutzenhofer and moved Davidson to third while Parenti was able to advance to second on a throwing error by the Northwestern center fielder. Shortstop T.F. Meagher followed Parenti with a solid single up the middle that scored both Davidson and Parenti to give Illinois a 5-4 lead.

Gorski was able to retire Northwestern in the sixth and seventh without any damage to pick up the win and improve to 2-1 on the year. Happ suffered the loss to fall to 1-1 after allowing three runs (two earned) in 2 2/3 innings of work.

Illinois was held to one run on four hits in game one by NU starter Gabe Ribas, but that run held up into extra innings thanks to fine pitching by Illinois starter Josh Gold and reliever Dave Mazurek. After Simmons hit a home run in the fourth inning and Northwestern scratched a run across in the sixth, the game went scoreless through the seventh and eighth before NU put two runs on the board in the ninth off a home run from first baseman Travis Tharp. Those runs were the first of the season allowed by Mazurek, who suffered the loss to fall to 0-1 despite throwing four innings and allowing only three hits while striking out six. Ribas got the win, improving to 4-3 on the year after allowing one run on four hits in nine innings of work. He waslked four and struck out 12.

Illinois returns to action this week, hosting Illinois State on Tuesday and Southern Illinois on Wednesdsay before traveling to Michigan State over the weekend. Both midweek games are scheduled to begin at 6:35 p.m.