OMAHA, Neb. — Illinois is six years removed from its last extended run in the Big Ten baseball tournament. The Illini have mostly been two-and-done in their recent trips to Charles Schwab Field.
They lost both of their games in 2023 to Indiana and Michigan. The order was reversed but the results the same in 2022. While the COVID-19 pandemic wiped out the tournament in 2021 and 2020, Illinois also went 0-2 in 2019 with back-to-back losses to Maryland and Michigan.
That’s what the Illini are trying to avoid this week in Omaha after their seven-game losing streak in the Big Ten tournament hit eight early Wednesday afternoon in an 8-4 loss to Penn State. Illinois (33-18) will face No. 5 Iowa (31-22) at 10 a.
m. Thursday in an elimination game. The top-seeded Illini entered the Big Ten tournament fresh off a series sweep at Purdue that delivered their first regular-season conference title since 2015.
Eighth-seeded Penn State (27-23) had to sweep Maryland in its final regular-season series to even make the tournament field. Then the Nittany Lions promptly knocked off the champs by doing what almost no team had the last two months. “To keep that offense from putting up crooked numbers, that’s pretty special,” Penn State coach Mike Gambino said.
The Nittany Lions snapped Illinois’ streak of 21 consecutive games with a home run and held the Illini to four or fewer runs for just the fourth time in two months. “We knew going in we thought we needed eight runs to win the bas.