There will be no repeat College World Series appearance from the Fighting Illini this year.
Illinois, which finished the season 28-23 overall and 12-12 in Big Ten play, fell just short of making it into the top eight of the conference standings, losing on a tiebreaker rule to Iowa.
It’s only the third time in head coach Dan Hartleb’s 11 seasons at the helm that the team failed to at least make the conference tournament, which shows a remarkable amount of consistency and high-quality play during his tenure.
The seniors on this squad, guys like closer Nick Blackburn and catcher Jason Goldstein, finished their careers with an overall record of 145-74-1 (.