By Matt Stevens - IlliniGuys Staff Writer

February 17, 2023

(Cover photo courtesy Illinois Athletics)

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Everybody around the Illinois baseball program is well aware how fortunate they were to roll through Big Ten Conference play in the 2022 campaign with a very limited bullpen.

Even after leading the league standings throughout much of the conference season and taking the all but two weekend Big Ten series, Illinois head coach Dan Hartleb arrived with his squad at Charles Schwab Field in Omaha for the league tournament telling local media he could honestly trust his confidence that he knew what he was getting from not more than one or two bullpen arms. In the do-or-die scenario of the Big Ten Tournament, Illinois’ bullpen gave up seven earned runs in back-to-back losses that ended the season in a manner that was anything but satisfying for an Illini squad that a month prior was 11-2 in league play and in a tie for first place in the conference standings.

Knowing this pitching depth issue was a big problem and the fact that three of the five pitchers who took the mound in the starter rotation during the 2022 season would be leaving for the draft, Hartleb and his pitching coach Mark Allen set out to rebuild the quantity and quality of arms in Champaign.

“We have much more depth on the mound than we’ve had in a long time around here,” Hartleb said. “It’ll be a work in progress throughout the season to see what roles people will take on. We don’t know who our closer will be and we don’t know how our rotation will look throughout the season.”

Allen was named Illinois' pitching coach in October 2019 and will begin his third season with the Illini in 2022. Allen joined the Fighting Illini after nine seasons in professional baseball, including the 2019 season as the San Francisco Giants' pitching coordinator. Allen oversaw all of San Francisco's minor league teams and pitching development during the 2019 season and prior to joining the Giants, Allen spent eight seasons with the Cleveland Indians organization as a scout, cross checker, national pitching cross checker, and pitching coordinator.

Hartleb and Allen both know that the optimism about what the Illini have on the mound literally and figuratively begins with the two returnee starting pitchers in the form of Riley Gowens and Jack Crowder.

Gowens, who took the final start of the 2022 season against Indiana in Omaha, will get the baseball first for the Illini after holding opposing batters to a .215 average in 13 starts last season while going 5-4 with a 4.86 earned run average. In the 11 a.m. CST contest Friday at Wake Forest’s David F. Couch Ballpark against Youngstown State, Gowens will hope he can repeat the start he had to the 2021 season. The 6-foot-3 righty held No. 25 West Virginia scoreless over five innings in a 86-pitch performance that led to a 6-2 win over the Mountaineers in Minneapolis, Minn. on March 5. Jack Wenninger (1-3, 5.71 ERA in 2022), a transfer from Murray State from two seasons ago, will get the Saturday afternoon start against Youngstown State and Crowder (3-1, 6.13 ERA) will face No. 6 Wake Forest on Saturday evening. Crowder, Romeoville, Ill., native is ranked as the Big Ten's No. 23 draft prospect in the 2023 MLB Draft according to D1Baseball.com and may have the best overall stuff of any Illini pitcher.

As a player at places such as Vernon Junior College (1994-96), University of Texas at San Antonio (1996-97) and Phillips University (1997-98) before going into coaching that included stops at St. Gregory's University (1998-99), Northlake Junior College (1999) and Frank Phillips College (2003-04), Allen is well aware that pitchers can be found in the places considered by some to be the middle of nowhere.

After four years at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota, Arlington Heights (Ill.) native TJ Constertina, brings experience to Illinois' pitching stable. In 2022, he pitched in 17 games for St. Thomas, recording a 1.19 ERA, going 2-3 in 22.2 innings and striking out 26 batters. The 6-foot right-hander was named to the 2021 Division III All-World Series team during his team’s runner-up campaign before they moved up to Division I in 2022.

“What gives me much more confidence is knowing we have quality arms to try and answer those questions,” Hartleb said. “Those are now good questions to have instead of bad questions to have when you don’t have the arms.”

Constertina joins Korey Bunselmeyer (Rend Lake), left-hander John Lundgren (North Alabama) and righty Logan Tabeling (Wright State) as transfers into the Illini pitching depth.

Illinois was 14-15 in non-conference play last season and Hartleb didn’t make the early season schedule any easier by scheduling road games against No. 6 Wake Forest, Southern Miss and Coastal Carolina.

“We need to play good people to get us prepared for how well we want to be this season,” Hartleb said. “We have a lot of new pieces offensively and we need to get tested and figure out roles earlier than we did last season.”