FT. MYERS, Fla. – Doug Hayes gave the Illinois baseball team another quality start resulting in the Illini's third consecutive win, a 4-2 victory at Florida Gulf Coast Saturday afternoon. Hayes allowed one run on five hits in 6.0 innings to earn his first career win.
"I thought our guys did a great job," said head coach Dan Hartleb. "We got great pitching again today. Doug Hayes went out and was excellent."
Hayes (1-0) kept the ball down in the zone to induce 10 ground ball outs in the 24 batters he faced. The lefty stayed out of trouble by getting ahead of hitters and retiring five of six leadoff batters.
The Fighting Illini's starting pitchers have worked at least 5.2 innings while allowing three or fewer earned runs in each of the team's first five games.
Illinois (3-2) was led offensively by Jason Goldstein's second three-hit performance of the season. Goldstein drove in the game's first run with a single up the middle in the top of the first and added two more singles to total 10 hits in the opening five games.
Matthew James hit the Illini's first home run of 2016, a towering blast to right center field to leadoff the sixth inning. Anthony Drago was 3 for 4 with an RBI single and Jack Yalowitz produced his second RBI single in as many days, as Illinois scored single tallies in four of its nine at-bats.
"We found ways to get big hits with runners in scoring position," said Hartleb. "It was just a solid day. We didn't do anything spectacular but we did a lot of things very well."
The Illini went 3 for 11 with runners in scoring position, while FGCU was held to 1 for 5.
Cole Bellair threw scoreless seventh and eighth innings and Nick Blackburn (2) allowed a run in ninth to earn his second save. Bellair struck out three of seven batters faced, as FGCU tallied just six hits in the game off the Illini's trio of pitchers.
Brady Anderson (0-2) took the loss by allowing three runs – one earned – on nine hits over the first 6.0 innings. Garrett Anderson limited the Illini to one run in the final three frames.
The Illini will look for its fourth straight victory and first sweep of 2016 tomorrow at 12 p.m. CT. Andrew Mamlic (0-0, 1.59) is slated to start Sunday's series finale against FGCU right-hander Mario Leon (0-1, 9.00).
