The No. 25 Illinois baseball team allowed three runs in the eighth inning Sunday to fall to Grand Canyon 5-3 at Illinois Field. drop the three-game series 2-1.

 

Illinois (24-11) outhit Grand Canyon 11-9 but left nine runners on base. The Illini scored two runs in the fifth inning on a two-out double by Michael Massey and a wild pitch and added one in the ninth.

 

Jeff Korte, Grant Van Scoy and Zac Taylor singled to start the ninth with Illinois trailing 5-2 before Ben Troike grounded into a double play and Bren Spillane grounded out to end the game. Van Scoy had three hits, Korte had two and Taylor added two.

 

Troike extended his career-long reached base streak to 40 games, the longest active streak in the Big Ten.

 

Ty Weber turned in a quality start, throwing six innings and allowing two runs on five hits. Weber kept his season ERA at 3.00.

 

Quinten Sefcik (1-1) took the loss by allowing the first run in the eighth, after he threw a scoreless seventh. Zack Jones (0.0 IP, 1 R) and Ryan Thompson (0.2 IP, 1 R) finished the eighth inning.

 

Quin Cotton led GCU with three hits and two runs scored. 

 

Illinois finishes its nine-game homestand Tuesday against Bradley.