Baseball: Buckeyes Drop Two Of Three To Illinois, Fall Below .500 In Big Ten

After winning two midweek games against Cincinnati and Akron in an offensive explosion, Ohio State was back to conference play over the weekend in Champaign, Ill., but lost two out of three games, falling below .500 in the Big Ten.

Landon Beidelschies started game one on the mound and went 4 2/3 innings, giving up four earned runs on four hits, three walks and five strikeouts. While it wasn’t one of his better outings, the offense was able to score seven runs of its own to get the 7-5 win.

The Buckeyes scored three runs in the fifth inning on a Ryan Miller double, one of his two hits on the day, and a Nick Giamarusti sacrifice fly that brought in Miller. They had four other innings where they scored one run.

Zach Brown earned the win after he got through the sixth inning after Beidelschies came out of the game before Blaine Wynk came in for the final three innings, earning the save by giving up just one hit and striking out two hitters.

In the second game, southpaw Gavin Bruni struggled on the mound, giving up four runs in just 2 2/3 innings, walking five batters and giving up three hits. Five pitchers had to be brought out of the bullpen to finish the rest of the game. Chase Herrell went 2 1/3 innings and gave up a run and after Jaylen Jones and Jake Michalak covered an inning together, Jacob Morin relinquished five runs, four of them earned.

Tyler Pettorini created most of the offense for Ohio State, hitting two home runs and knocking in four of the five runs the team scored in the 10-5 loss. Mitchell Okuley was the only other Buckeye with multiple hits.

Scoring was even more trouble on Sunday for the Buckeyes, who only came around to cross the plate twice in the rubber match. Illinois kept runs coming the entire day with 12 runs spread out between six different innings of scoring.

Isaac Cadena knocked in the only two runs, one a solo home run to center field in the third inning and the other a double to right center in the fourth, bringing in Josh Stevenson, who singled to get on base.

Freshman Gavin DeVooght was able to make it through five innings but gave up seven runs on seven hits and three walks. Brown and Justin Eckhardt finished the game to get to the mercy rule in the eighth inning.

Next up for Ohio State is Eastern Michigan on Tuesday and Youngstown State on Wednesday, both at Bill Davis Stadium, before matching up against Northwestern for a three-game series at home to try to improve its conference record and make the Big Ten tournament that starts May 21.

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