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Sept. 7, 2006

Hey Illini fans! This is Jake Toohey and I am one of a couple of returning seniors who will be keeping you updated on how the team is doing during fall practice while we prepare for the upcoming spring season. We officially kicked off the fall season last Thursday with our first practice.

We have quite a few new faces on the team as well as a familiar one that recently became one of our coaches. Dave Schultz, our first baseman last year, joins Coaches Hartleb, Snider, Westray and Herbison to help as a volunteer assistant while he finishes up the remainder of his classes. We also have 10 new members to the squad with nine freshmen and Daniel Webb, who transferred in from John A. Logan College. Along with the new guys, we have 22 returning players who have gained valuable experience playing last year and during the summer.

This fall, the team has really been working hard to improve our game and the work looks to be paying off. During practices and workouts we seem to be a lot sharper than in the past, and we are all ready to take that next step to become an elite ball club.

Since the first day of practice, a lot of things have stood out that make us believe that we will have a great spring. One of the most noticeable is how impressive our hitters have been thus far. It really seems like they are all glad to be back at school with aluminum bats in their hands after many of them were swinging with wood all summer. We've still got some of our big guns back from last year including Mike Rohde, Ryan Hastings, Lars Davis and Ryan Snowden, to name a few. With a good balance of power and some returning speed on the base paths from Joey Bonadonna, Shawn Roof and Kyle Hudson, we should be scoring a lot of runs during the spring and racking up a lot of wins.

Mike Rohde is a member of this year's senior class that is looking to take Illinois Baseball back to the top of the Big Ten.

In order to achieve that goal, our pitching staff is going to have to be very strong as well, and we have been working hard to get better everyday. Pitching should be a big strength for us this year as we have an abundance of experienced guys. With the losses of Matt Whitmore and Brian Blomquist, there will be some big shoes to fill on the staff, but there are plenty of guys who are eager to step in and help us win.

Sophomores Scott Shaw, Ben Reeser, Aaron Martin and Tanner Roark, among others, got their first taste of college baseball last year, and we should be poised to make some noise this year in the Big Ten. There are a lot of good arms on this staff and we should be really deep in the starting rotation and in the bullpen.

That's all I've got for now, but keep an eye out for the next blog to hear more throughout the fall as we keep working hard to bring the Big Ten title, and more, back to Champaign. GO ILLINI!!!