PISCATAWAY, N.J. -- Rutgers baseball will travel to No. 3 Illinois to play its eighth and final road weekend of the regular season. The three-game series will start Saturday and will be contested at Illinois Field (free admission) in Champaign, Ill., a site the Scarlet Knights will be visiting for the first time. The Fighting Illini lead the Big Ten standings and enter with a nation-best 21-game winning streak.

UPDATE - The Friday game was rained out and the teams will play a Saturday doubleheader starting at 11 a.m. ET.

RU has played two other ranked opponents on the road this season (No. 9 Miami, No. 24 Florida Atlantic) in addition to hosting Ohio State, who has seen time in the national rankings during the year. The last win over a team in the current top 25 was April 25, 2014 at home versus No. 10 Houston, while the last victory over a top-five squad was March 23, 2013 when the Scarlet Knights took a series at No. 4 Louisville. The Scarlet Knights previously faced a top-three team in March 2006 when Georgia Tech was No. 1.

SCOUTING RUTGERS
In midweek action, the Scarlet Knights earned a pair of Tuesday wins over Saint Peter's at Bainton Field. First wrapping up a suspended game from the sixth inning, freshman John O'Reilly (Northvale, N.J.) tossed four scoreless to preserve a 5-0 victory. Sophomore Kevin Baxter (Waterford, N.J.) had previously pitched five blank innings April 22, as it was the first shutout win of the season. In the regularly scheduled game that followed, RU earned a 7-6 comeback win in 10 innings. The team rallied for three in the seventh to knot the game at five. In the 10th, junior R.J. Devish (Beachwood, N.J.) reached for the fifth time in as many plate appearances on a hit by pitch and eventually scored from second on a wild pitch. It was the second walk-off win of the season.



Rutgers will look to return to the win column in Big Ten play after dropping all three at Penn State in its most recent league action. The Scarlet Knights hold conference series wins over Purdue and Minnesota with six games left on the schedule.

For the season, sophomore Tom Marcinczyk (Middlesex, N.J.) leads the bats with a .330 average, a .416 on-base percentage (ranked 15th in the Big Ten), a .480 slugging clip and five home runs. He is hitting a team-best .354 in league games, having collected seven hits last weekend at Penn State. Junior Chris Suseck (Flemington, N.J.) joins Marcinczyk for the team RBI lead at 26. Senior Vinny Zarrillo (Forked River, N.J.) has 222 career hits -- ninth in the RU record book -- and needs eight more to reach fifth place in program history. He is the only player to start all 49 games this season.

The stolen base has been a big part of the Rutgers attack, as the team has the second-highest total in the Big Ten at 70. Four players are in double-digits with senior Joe D'Annunzio (Scotch Plains, N.J.) and Devish leading the way at 13 apiece. In addition, Suseck has 12 and Zarrillo has 11. The team total is most since swiping 86 in 2010.

Rutgers will stay with the same weekend starting pitchers for the eighth-straight weekend, but junior Howie Brey (Middletown, N.J.) will slide up to the opening start for the first time since beginning the spring break trip at the Indiana State tournament. The left-hander leads the staff with 65.1 innings and 50 strikeouts on the year. Junior Mark McCoy (Barnegat, N.J.) will go Saturday and is tied for ninth in the Big Ten with 19 called strikeouts. He also owns three pickoffs. Sophomore Gaby Rosa (Perth Amboy, N.J.) returned to form last week at Penn State, allowing two runs over six innings to leave in line to win. The right-hander has a .258 average against in six conference starts, all in the series finales.

In relief, senior Jon Young (Old Bridge, N.J.) leads the staff with 21 appearances, finishing the game 18 times. He is tied for sixth in school history with 11 saves and sports a 2.05 ERA for the year. Click here and here for recent feature stories on the right-hander.

NOTABLE
Rutgers has played 14 games this season that have lasted at least three hours, including last three, and two that have ended up before the two-hour mark ... RU is 15-2 in games when leading after six innings this season and 10-3 when scoring at least six runs in a game ... the offense has collected double-digit hits 19 times, including six of the last seven games ... the defense has played errorless baseball 16 times ... the Scarlet Knights have matched last season's home run total of 14 ... the team is 15-3 in the last four seasons when hitting multiple homers in a game ... RU has scored more in the fifth inning (34) than any other frame ... sophomore Christian Campbell (Sayreville, N.J.) holds the active team lead with an eight-game hitting streak (two shy of matching career long) ... Marcinczyk leads with 18 multiple-hit games, including six of the last seven ... sophomore Chris Folinusz (Cranford, N.J.) leads qualifying batters on the team with a .375 average with runners in scoring position ... O'Reilly has a 3.00 ERA, the second-lowest amongst all qualifying Big Ten freshmen pitchers ... Devish has thrown out 13 runners attempting to steal and has been the starting catcher for all Big Ten games ... D'Annunzio tripled Sunday to raise his season total to eight, which is tied for the nation lead ... also the second-most in a year in the program record books - his 15 career three-baggers are three behind all-time leader Adam Neubart (1996-98) ... thirty-two of the 35 players on the roster hail from the state of New Jersey.

SCOUTING ILLINOIS
The Fighting Illini have played to the highest winning percentage in the nation at .941, riding a 21-game winning streak. The team is ranked No. 3 by Collegiate Baseball and holds a 17-2 record at Illinois Field.  Most recently, Illinois swept No. 23 Ohio State on the road to take 1.5 game lead over Iowa in the Big Ten standings. The only conference loss came at Michigan State March 29. Led by a Tyler Jay (0.73 ERA) and Kevin Duchene (0.78), the staff has working to a league-leading 2.31 ERA (fourth nationally). David Kerian paces the offense with a .366 average and 11 home runs, both tops in the Big Ten.

Head coach Dan Hartleb is in his 10th season at the helm of the program. Click here for more on Illinois baseball.

THE SERIES
Rutgers and Illinois have met once on the baseball diamond. The Fighting took a 4-0 victory on March 20, 1989 in a game played in South Florida.

UP NEXT
Rutgers will return home May 14 to begin a three-game series versus Iowa at Bainton Field.

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