Illinois’ season ends in blowout fashion to Indiana State

The Super Regional drought will live on.

Despite winning the Big Ten’s regular season crown, Illinois failed to generate much offense over six postseason games and ended its season in a blowout loss to Indiana State on Sunday afternoon in the Lexington Regional of the NCAA Tournament.

If the Illini beat the Sycamores for the second time in three days, they would have advanced to the Regional Final against No. 2 overall seed Kentucky. Illinois would have had to beat the Wildcats two times in a row to reach its first Super Regional since 2015.

But we won’t have to have that conversation after the Illini fell 13-2 in a game delayed by rain in the middle of the ninth inning.

Illinois fell behind early as the Sycamores poured in seven runs in their half of the third. The Illini finally scored in the seventh on a Brody Harding RBI single, but that was not nearly enough to defeat one of the country’s best mid-major programs.

One of the best offenses in the nation in the regular season, Illinois never found its groove last month at the Big Ten Tournament in Omaha or this weekend in the Lexington Regional. Pretty disappointing, but this team wasn’t even expected to compete for any kind of titles this year, so definitely an overall successful campaign for Big Ten Coach of the Year Dan Hartleb.

Track and field nationals remain, and then we can close the book on another athletic year for the Fighting Illini.