The New Orleans Privateers are set to travel to Champaign for a non-conference baseball series against the Illinois Fighting Illini, beginning Friday, Apr. 9. The three-game matchup will be broadcast on B1G Plus.
This series is significant as it marks only the third time in program history that the Privateers have played at a Big Ten school. The team previously competed at a regional hosted by Michigan in 1981 and played Minnesota at the Metrodome in 2005.
Pitching matchups for the weekend include William Andrade facing Regan Hall on Friday, Riley Marcotte against Mitch Dye on Saturday, and Reid Leonard versus Aidan Flynn on Sunday. The Privateers come into this series after a close 3-2 loss to #10 Southern Miss, where they drew nine walks and Bryson Goff pitched over five innings while allowing two runs. Evan Rogers led offensively with his fourteenth multi-hit game of the season, collecting three hits and driving in both runs for New Orleans.
Rogers is one of five players on the team with at least ten multi-hit games this year, joined by Eli Tidwell, Dylan Biddick, Owen Smith, and Kruise Newman. Recent pitching performances have also improved; starting pitchers have completed at least five innings in each of the last four games—something achieved just seven times over their previous thirty-one contests.
Historically, New Orleans holds a slight edge over Illinois with a 3-2 record all-time between the teams. Their last meeting was in New Orleans during a three-game set in 1990 that saw the Privateers win two out of three games.
Illinois enters this weekend’s series with an overall record of 16-15 and is led offensively by AJ Putty who has posted a .331 batting average along with 34 runs batted in. On the mound, Regan Hall leads his team with more than forty-six innings pitched and forty-one strikeouts.
