Sports rivalries are sacred.
In a feud, two teams might share respect for each other, but they don’t have to like each other. Everything is thrown out the window when it comes to a rivalry game — records, series history and projections.
Bradley baseball’s (8-27, 4-11 MVC) season hasn’t been what they had hoped for up to this point, but when the Illinois State (18-19, 9-6 MVC) series arrived this past weekend, the Braves recognized the opportunity in front of them.
“I remember when I was just a freshman here a couple of years ago, our coaches always said, ‘we don’t lose to ISU,’” senior outfielder Cole Luckey said before the rivalry series. “We’ve done pretty well against them in the past couple of years, and I expect the same thing this year.”
The Braves lived up to their expectations.
Back-end battle
The I-74 rivalry series was initially scheduled to be played in Peoria at Dozer Park; however, the inclement weather moved the three-game set to Normal at Duffy Bass Field.
Junior infielder Timmy O’Brien kicked off the first game on Friday with an RBI single to give the Braves a 1-0 lead. After the Redbirds matched the score with their own RBI single, freshman infielder Jackson Smith created a run by advancing on a passed ball to retake the lead.
Later on, junior utility Mason Breidenbach hit a double to the left-center gap, and O’Brien continued to smash the baseball with a two-run blast to deep left field.
Freshman right-handed pitcher Josh Vaughn established command on the mound, going 5.1 innings and allowing six hits, three earned runs, three walks and three strikeouts. He gave up his final two runs in the top of the sixth to an Illinois State home run. The Redbirds added a run each in the seventh and eighth innings to grab a 5-4 advantage late in the game.
With one out in the bottom of the eighth inning, junior infielder Beau Durbin and Luckey launched back-to-back bombs to left field and powered the Braves back in front 6-5. Junior right-handed pitcher Reece Clapp closed the game out with a ground ball double-play and strikeout to earn his second save of the year and the Braves’ first win in the series.
“We’re gonna ride the momentum. I think we even rolled the momentum of our third game, the Belmont win, into this one,” O’Brien said. “I think the team is really kind of coming around. I think our pitching has been really great, our hitting [is] coming around.”
Walk-off winner
Bradley attacked early in the first game of Saturday’s doubleheader with a four-run first inning. Smith homered, Breidenbach lasered an RBI double, O’Brien dropped a run-scoring single and Luckey did his job with a sacrifice fly to put the Braves up 4-0.
“We, situationally, hit very well and were able to manufacture runs in many ways whether that was home runs or bunting guys over and getting them in,” Durbin said.
Illinois State had an answer, as they did the day before, when Daniel Pacella cleared the bases against junior right-handed pitcher Gavin Thompson with a game-tying grand slam in the fifth inning. The Redbirds stole another run on the next at-bat on back-to-back home runs.
The back-and-forth battle ensued in the bottom of the fifth when the Braves scored three runs, including another home run to right center from the hot bat of O’Brien.
Leading 7-6 entering their portion of the sixth inning, senior utility Bobby Atkinson, Durbin and junior infielder Cole Smith scored on a sacrifice fly and two singles, respectively, to push the Braves’ lead to 11-6. By the end of the seventh inning, Bradley built up a 13-6 lead and looked like they were going to coast to their first Missouri Valley Conference series win.
But the Redbirds weren’t going to allow that.
Illinois State chipped away at Bradley’s lead and cut the deficit to just four before Brayden Bakes’ big swing knocked the Braves down with a game-tying grand slam to deep center. The Redbirds scored seven runs in the eighth inning to tie the game, 13-13.
Neither team broke through immediately in extra innings. The Braves threatened with the bases loaded in the bottom of the 11th with two outs, but Durbin rolled over on the first pitch and hit a soft ground ball to third and stranded the runners on base.
Next inning, Luckey used his two-strike approach to lead off the 12th with a single and give Bradley a pulse. That pulse palpitated when junior outfielder Ashton Horchem snuck the baseball on the fair side of the right field line that scored Luckey from first base and sent the Braves into a frenzy as they celebrated the 14-13 walk-off win.
“Walking up to the plate, I felt confident,” Horchem said. “My mind almost went blank, and I just focused on watching the ball down the line, hoping it wouldn’t go foul and when I touched second base after it was fair I came back to the moment to celebrate with the team.”
“It’s definitely a great feeling after some of the tough days baseball can bring,” Horchem added. “It’s a reminder of why I chose this sport. I’m just glad I could do my job for the hitters and pitchers who had also been battling the whole game.”
A long and tightly-contested game like that can be challenging to manage as players and coaches, but the relief of a win makes it all worth it.
“It was, mentally, a very draining game, because we would get a lead, we’d maybe then give it up, and to be able to break through at the end there was so huge,” O’Brien said about the emotions of a 12-inning thriller. “It was just kind of a matter of time for one team to put a run on the board there in the extra [innings]. So it was awesome. That was a really fun moment. Really glad that happened for Ashton and our team.”
Braves break out the brooms
Riding high from the emotions of a walk-off win against a rival, the Braves rolled in the series finale over the Redbirds.
Despite trailing 1-0 after the first two innings, Bradley didn’t flinch when Breidenbach created a run on a ground out and Atkinson went deep to bring the Braves ahead 2-1. In the fifth inning, Breidenbach struck again with an RBI single to left.
O’Brien capped off his career weekend with his third home run of the series in the seventh inning. His 14th long ball of the year gave Bradley a 6-5 lead and marked the fifth straight game with a home run for O’Brien, propelling him to the top of the MVC in that category.
“I think it’s just getting good pitches to hit and not missing them,” O’Brien said about his home run surge. “Really, I can’t say there was a ton of focus on necessarily hitting more home runs, just more [about] being locked in my approach, not missing pitches that are hittable to put out.”
Senior catcher Nick Hosie recorded one more run in the seventh inning that proved to be a big insurance run as Illinois State attempted another eighth-inning comeback with four runs scored. The Redbirds didn’t have the same luck as they did before, as the Braves held firm to win 7-5 and completed the rivalry sweep over Illinois State.
“I think we turned it over really well,” O’Brien said about Bradley’s offense. “Guys like Ashton Horchem, getting us that walk-off win on that second game was huge. And I think one through nine [in the lineup] put up really good at-bats, whether we had guys that could slug a little bit or on-base guys. Everyone was doing their job, which is really huge, and just playing [to their] role.”
The MVC series sweep is Bradley’s first since 2019, when they won all three games against Missouri State in Springfield, Mo.
“It’s awesome. It’s incredible,” O’Brien said about sweeping their MVC rival. “It’s always been a pretty good rivalry for us. Whenever we play [Illinois State], there’s a little bit of a chip on our shoulder, I think. And [it] feels very good.”
The Braves are playing their best baseball right now as they travel to Chicago to face off against UIC this weekend, with the first of the three-game series on Friday.
“I always try to tell the guys, you know, it’s not really how you start, it’s how you finish in this conference, especially,” O’Brien said. “So being able to finish strong is going to be huge for us, and I think we’ll hopefully ride this momentum into UIC.”
