May 19, 2002

Box Score

Iowa City, Iowa - The Illini baseball team dropped its regular season finale 5-3 at Iowa Sunday afternoon to finish 32-19 overall and 14-15 in the Big Ten. Illinois tied Northwestern for sixth place in the final League standings but missed out on a spot in the Big Ten Tournament for the first time in seven years because NU held the tiebreaker over Illinois by virtue of a 2-1 head-to-head record against the Illini.

Illinois and Iowa, both playing for a Tournament berth, played scoreless baseball until the bottom of the second when Iowa used a one-out double to scratch a run across against Illini starter Ted Rowe. Illinois came right back in the top of the third when Drew Davidson hit his team-leading 10th home run of the season to left field to tie the game at one all.

Illinois and Iowa traded single runs through 5 _ innings before Iowa scored one in the bottom of the sixth off Rowe and two in the bottom of the seventh off reliever Dave Mazurek to take a commanding 5-2 lead.

Illinois rallied in the top of the eighth inning when Brian Raymond led off by being hit by a pitch and Davidson followed with a walk to put runners on first and second with no one out. After Andy Schutzenhofer struck out, Patrick Arlis sent a single to left that plated Raymond, but Luke Simmons struck out and Brandon Cashman flew to center to end the threat.

Mazurek suffered the loss to fall to 1-3 on the year after throwing 2 2/3 innings and allowing two runs on four hits. Rowe threw 5 1/3 innings, allowing three runs on six hits. Iowa starter Chris Maliszewski earned the win to improve to 4-2 on the year after allowing three runs on four hits in 7 1/3 innings. Dyson Miguel earned his second save of the series after throwing the final 1 2/3 innings and allowing only one hit.