Baseball Defeated by No. 17 Illinois 9-4

Wednesday, March 25

Urbana-Champaign, IL

4:00 PM

Kent State University

10-10

University of Illinois

18-5-1

Kent State

Illinois

3/25/2015 8:11:00 PM | Baseball

Box Score

Box Score (pdf)

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – Kent State (10-10) ended its spring break trip with a 9-4 loss at No. 17 lllinois (18-5-1) on Wednesday.

The Fighting Illini plated one in the first then followed with two in the 3^rd and another run in the 5^th to take a 4-0 lead.

The Golden Flashes first scored in the 6^th when Zarley Zalewski reached on a fielder's choice and came around home on a single by Tim DalPorto. In the next inning, Illinois put up five runs to put the game out of reach. Those tallies came on four straight walks and a bases-clearing triple. A groundout, the first out of the bottom of the 7^th, brought the fifth run in.

Kent State tried to rally late with a two-run 8^th. Zalewski doubled and Jeff Revez singled before Conner Simonetti singled them both home. They tacked on the final run in 9^th after three walks loaded the bases and Zalewski grabbed a RBI on a sacrifice fly.

Revesz had three hits on the day while Sawyer Polen and Tommy Monnot both finished with two.

Jared Skolnicki suffered the loss as he went 4.1 innings in the start with ten hits, three earned runs, no walks and four strikeouts. Aaron Tadian, Zach Spangler and Dan Kopcak all followed in relief, giving up a combined two hits and five earned runs with four walks and no strikeouts. Chris Martin pitched the 9^th with no hits and no runs.

The Golden Flashes return home for a Mid-American Conference series this weekend as they host Eastern Michigan. Game times have been changed to 2 p.m. on Friday and Saturday. Sunday's game is still set to begin at 1 p.m.