By Drew Locascio
Illinois Scouting Director

Final: Minnesota/Iowa/Nebraska 8, Illinois 7

The second day of the PBR Future Games consisted of every team in the event playing one game. Illinois was paired against one of the more impressive teams in the event, Minnesota/Iowa/Nebraska and lost 8-7.

Illinois scored four runs in the fourth inning, two more in the sixth and one more in the final frame but in the end it was not enough.

OF Briar Stinson (Rushville-Industry, 2020) may have been the most impressive prospect in the Illinois lineup on the day. Stinson finished 2-for-3 with two doubles to left-center field. The young outfielder swings the bat with aggression and was 4.50 on the turn.

The top of the lineup, Danny Doligale (Brother Rice, 2019), Clark Elliott (Barrington, 2019) and Greg Ziegler (Joliet Catholic, 2019) also had nice days for Team Illinois. Doligale drove a run-scoring triple into the right-center field gap and made a really nice play, tracking a ball hit into deep-center field. Elliott lined out hard in his first two at-bats, one resulting in a sacrifice fly. The left-handed hitter also walked and stole a base. Ziegler finished 1-for-3 with a walk, RBI and two stolen bases.

A total of seven different arms threw for Illinois, all going one inning apiece. Zachary Lee (Effingham, 2019) started and came out with a hot fastball, touching 91 mph a couple of times.

Xander Rojahn (Elk Grove, 2019) and Tyler Schlaffer (Homewood-Flossmoor, 2019) also stood out in their one-inning stints. Rojahn went 1-2-3 and struck out two. The 6-foot-2, 190-pound right-hander pounded the strike zone with a three-pitch mix and sat 86-88 mph with his fastball. Schlaffer came out and challenged hitters with a firm fastball that he ran up to 90 mph.

Tomorrow Team Illinois matches up against Team Wisconsin at 2:00 pm.

Make sure to check out our running Day 1 Scout Blog by clicking HERE.

A full schedule and pitching rotations can be found HERE.

For a full Illinois Future Games Roster CLICK HERE.

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