A close contest between Illinois and Eastern turned into a blowout as the Illini exploded for 10 of their 13 runs in the final three innings en route to a 13-3 victory at Coaches Stadium.

The Illini were up by a slim 3-1 margin entering the top of the seventh when Panther hurler Brian Long ran into trouble. The freshman surrendered a home run to leadoff hitter Vince DiMaria; and after recording outs on the next two batters, Long gave up four straight singles and two more runs as Illinois opened up a 6-1 lead after seven innings.

Seldom used pitcher Ryan Parsons replaced Long in the eighth inning and struggled much like his fellow freshman teammate. DiMaria led off the inning with a solid single and after a double by Eric Eymann, the Illini had two runners in scoring positions with no one out. Infielder Shawn Roof took advantage of the situation with a single to left-center, scoring both DiMaria and Eymann. The Illini (16-22) tacked on two more runs in the eighth when infielder Chris Robinson launched a two-run blast to left field to give the Illini a 10-1 lead.

The Panthers pushed across two runs in the bottom half of the eighth when Paul Dean roped a triple down the first base line scoring both Kyle Haines and Mike Gavin. Eastern, however, would get no closer. The Illini scored three more times in the ninth, including Eymann’s two-run moon shot homer off reliever Eric Huber to finish the scoring.

Despite his relievers giving up eight runs in four innings of work, Panthers head coach Jimmy Schmitz didn’t seem worried with his bullpen come conference play this weekend.

“Parsons and Huber are not our top guys, so conference wise with Long and [Chris] Vaculik we’re fine,” Schmitz said.

“I’m not that concerned about our relievers.”

But Schmitz was disappointed with the Panthers at the plate. Six Illini pitchers limited the Panthers to just five hits throughout the game. Only three different Panthers [Dean, Ryan Campbell and Kevin Carkeek] had base hits on the afternoon.

“I’m very disappointed in the offense,” Schmitz said. “They [Illinois] threw a few good guys today, but we didn’t come out ready to swing the bats. We were taking too many pitches and heading into this weekend it is very disappointing in terms of how aggressive we were.”

If there was a bright spot in a ten-run loss it was the performance of Eastern starting pitcher Jason Pinnell. The junior, making his first start since freshman year, pitched five innings giving up four hits and three runs while striking out two. Pinnell picked up the loss, but impressed Schmitz with his solid outing.

“I’m more than pleased with Pinnell,” Schmitz said. “The key is we have some concerns with Jared [Marshall] pitching wise and I can’t be more pleased with Jason. He pitched well this weekend against Southeast Missouri State and that’s why I started him. I really feel he has three or four good pitches he can throw for strikes.”

Coming off an injury, starter Jimmy Conroy pitched two shutout innings to pick up his sixth win against just one loss on the season.

Eastern will travel to Illinois State today to take on the Redbirds in non-conference action at 3 p.m.