May 1, 2008
Complete Release in PDF Format 
NORMAL, Ill. -
The Illinois State baseball team (19-22, 3-12 MVC) will look to jumpstart a final push for a berth in the 2008 State Farm Missouri Valley Conference Tournament this weekend, when the Redbirds host Bradley (24-19, 8-7 MVC) at Duffy Bass Field in a pivotal installment of the I-74 rivalry. ISU and the Braves will kick off the three-game set with a 6 p.m. game Friday. Saturday's 2 p.m. contest will be highlighted by the groundbreaking of the new ISU baseball stadium, and Sunday's rubbermatch is set to begin at 1 p.m.
The Redbirds went 1-1 in mid-week non-conference games this week, defeating host Illinois Wesleyan (7-4) Tuesday in the fifth annual Hornberger-Bass Classic, and falling to visiting Saint Louis Wednesday, 16-8, after tallying a season-high 17 hits offensively. Despite entering this weekend in the bottom half of the Valley in both team pitching and team batting, the Braves' eight league wins have them in position to garner a berth into the Valley Tournament, May 21-24 at Wichita, Kan.
"We have to take care of business at home this weekend," said head coach Jim Brownlee. "You want to be playing these types of series at your own field, and we are excited about Bradley coming to town. We haven't made the (Valley) Tournament in five years, and it has usually come down to the last weekend. This year, it just so happens that it is coming down to the third-to-last weekend. I feel comfortable with how we have pitched as of late, and we swung the bats well yesterday (against Saint Louis). When you look at us and Bradley statistically, the two teams are pretty even. We hit about the same, they are a little bit better defensively, and our pitching has been a little bit better. It should be a great series."
Friday's game one starter for the Redbirds will be ace Ryan Copeland, who has a 4-5 record on a 2.79 earned-run-average in 10 starts this season. In his last outing, Copeland threw 8.0 innings, surrendering just five hits and four earned runs while striking out seven in a 4-1 loss to Missouri State (Apr. 25).
On Saturday, ISU will counter with hurler Tyler Cox, who enters the weekend with a 4-2 record in 10 appearances and six starts. His 3.86 ERA ranks second on the team among starting pitchers. Cox has 48 strikeouts against just 18 walks this season. In his last outing, Cox allowed just two runs in six innings of work, but was out-dueled by MSU's Buddy Baumann in a 3-1 setback.
At approximately 1:40 p.m. Saturday, the groundbreaking ceremony for the new baseball stadium will be held. Judge Michael McCuskey, President Al Bowman and Director of Athletics Sheahon Zenger will all be part of the program. The stadium is slated to open prior to the start of the 2009 baseball season. It will include 1,000 chair-back seats, ticket office windows, restrooms, concession stands and a new press box facility.
Brownlee is excited about the building of the new stadium, which he believes will pay dividends to both the program and the surrounding Bloomington-Normal community.
"It's (the groundbreaking of the new baseball stadium) awesome," Brownlee said. "We have talked about a new stadium at ISU for 20 years, and now that it is going to come true, it is going to be a special day. As purist baseball people, we get excited about developments like these because they mean so much to a program. It is an arms race in college athletics, so the building of this new stadium is going to help us in a lot of ways. It will help us to promote baseball in the community, and immensely with recruiting. It is going to be great to see people's reaction to how unbelievable this facility is going to look."
The Redbirds' Sunday starter is undetermined. Dan Sorce, Eric Theisen, Jacob Wielebnicki, Corey Maines, Jim Sajewich and Quinn Ewert have combined for 25 starts this season, but Ewert is slated to start in center field this weekend.
The Redbirds enter this weekend with a 4-8 record at home, and Bradley is 10-8 on the road this season.
