Jeff Huth's Illini Insider

One to watch

WOMEN'S SOCCER, 7 p.m. Friday vs. Penn State

At Illinois Soccer and Track Stadium

As recently as two weeks ago, this matchup had the makings of a potential showdown for the Big Ten title.

Then the Illini went into a three-match tailspin that knocked Janet Rayfield's then-No. 16 team from the Top 25 and, realistically, out of contention for the conference crown.

Meanwhile, the Nittany Lions went 3-1 in that same span and replaced Illinois as the Big Ten's highest-ranked team at No. 21.

What's happened to the Illini? Nothing that a few goals couldn't cure.

With a 0.81 goals-against average, the Illinois defense is on pace to record the second-lowest GAA in school history. The Illini have been consistently stingy, too, holding 14 of 16 opponents to one or fewer goals. No UI foe has scored more than two goals.

Yet, even this superlative defense hasn't been able to rescue Illinois in the face of an extended goal-scoring drought. During the 0-3 slump, Illinois was shut out in each match by a 1-0 score.

The drought has Rayfield examining every aspect of the Illini attack.

"I think we've worked really hard on being on the same page and working together," the UI coach said. "On Sunday (at Indiana), I thought our movement was good. Maybe we played a little too unselfish, a little too focused on the movement."

Immediately after Illinois' latest loss, Rayfield talked of her primary offensive players needing to think of themselves not as forwards but as goal scorers.

"I think it's a little bit of a mentality shift," she said a few days later. "Goal scorers have a mentality of hunger. Any little chance (to score) they see as a huge opening."

The scoring problems also have Rayfield re-examining the depth of her player rotation up front. In a bid to kick-start the attack, the Illini coach has used as many as eight forwards in a match. Rayfield said she'll likely scale that back to no more than five.

"I think the players need to know if we give them a better idea of when and how they can go in and impact the game, they'll be able to do that," she said.

Rayfield is hopeful a return home for the Big Ten stretch run will revive Illinois (9-7), which has slipped to a three-way tie for sixth place at 3-4. The Illini have won their last 13 home games, including six this season. Illinois' final three regular season games are on home turf.

"We're excited to be back home," said Rayfield, whose team played five of its previous seven matches on the road.

Penn State (11-6) enters atop the Big Ten at 6-1 and has shut out five of its last six opponents.

Illini of the Week

Katie Engel, Cross-country

Before Saturday's Pre-Nationals at Terre Haute, Ind., Illini coach Jeremy Rasmussen encouraged Engel to "stick her nose in" with the lead pack for as long as possible and see what happens.

What happened was the senior not only ran the fastest 6-kilometer race of her life but finished a hard-charging fourth in the White race.

"We talked prior to the race about where she could be – top 10, maybe top 15," Rasmussen said. "I'm definitely excited by what she did, but it wasn't surprising by any stretch of the imagination."

Coming off an eighth-place finish in her season debut Oct. 3 at the Notre Dame Invitational, Engel excelled again in this NCAA Championships preview. Her time of 20 minutes, 22.6 seconds was 13th fastest overall when results from the White and Blue races were combined and fourth fastest among all Big Ten entrants.

Those back-to-back performances against elite competition have Engel reassessing what she can accomplish the rest of the year.

"Like Coach has been telling me, 'You can do a lot better than you did last year,' " she said. "He has a lot of confidence in me. Running these races tells myself I actually can do it. I had goals at the beginning of the season and they definitely have changed a little bit."

The 2005 Big Ten Freshman of the Year and two-time All-Big Ten second-teamer displayed an impressive kick at Pre-Nationals. With 2 kilometers remaining, Engel was in 10th place. By the 5K mark, she'd risen to fifth and wasn't done passing people yet. During the final 800 meters, Engel picked off another runner to place fourth, 0.4 second behind the No. 3 finisher.

"I was actually pretty surprised," Engel said. "I was just running and didn't realize I was passing people, and all the sudden I got to the last straightaway and there were only four people in front of me. And I got one of them."

Rasmussen is confident that if the race had been just a bit longer, Engel would have picked off even more runners.

"Her foot speed from the 800 and 1,500 on the track. she was using that natural speed she has," he said. "She really closed the gap well. If there had been another 20 meters or so, she would have been second."

Finnegan on rise

Leigh Finnegan lost the only singles match she played at the ITA All-American Championships last month, but the outcome tells only part of the story.

Paired against Baylor's Jelena Stanivuk in the first round of prequalifying, Finnegan gave her 97th-ranked opponent all she could handle before falling 7-6 (3), 7-5. Add in a 1-1 record with doubles partner Megan Fudge in the same tournament, and Illini women's tennis coach Michelle Dasso can't wait to see what the redshirt sophomore does next.

"Leigh Finnegan played some very good tennis at the All-Americans," Dasso said. "Hopefully, she can build on that."

Finnegan gets that chance Saturday, when the main draw of the ITA Midwest Regional Championships in East Lansing, Mich., begins. "If she plays as well as she did at All-Americans, she should have a good regional," Dasso said.

There is one complication, however, Dasso has her fingers crossed that Finnegan can recover quickly enough from a recent illness to be at the top of her game. She – and the rest of the Illini – will need to be at their best to survive one of the toughest fields they'll face all year. Every Big Ten team except Indiana is expected to be at the Midwest Regional, as well as perennial power Notre Dame.

At stake are three spots in the ITA National Indoor Championships next month in Virginia. The singles finalists and the doubles winner from each regional qualify.

"It's very, very challenging (to reach indoor nationals)," Dasso said. "For our girls in qualifying, the goal will be to make the main draw. For our girls in the main draw, our No. 1 goal will be to win a round and take it from there."

Four of Illinois' seven singles entrants are in the main draw: Finnegan, Fudge, Marisa Lambropoulos and Shivani Dave. The Illini also have three teams in the main doubles draw, which begins Friday.

Phillies Phan

Illini pitching coach Ken Westray has more than a passing interest in the World Series. From 1994 to 2003, Westray served as a pitching instructor in the Philadelphia Phillies' player development system. Among the current Phillies pitchers he tutored either in the minor leagues or offseason instructional leagues were staff ace Cole Hamels, fellow starter Brett Myers and setup reliever Ryan Madson.

"All great kids, all awfully talented," Westray said. "Madson was one of my favorite kids all time in my 10 years with the Phillies. Hamels has great ability and instinct and aptitude for the game. And Hamels has an unbelievable changeup, so I've tried to talk to our kids about (the importance of a changeup)."

During his time with the Phillies, Westray also became acquainted with several of the current major league coaches. Hitting coach Milt Thompson, in particular, remains a good friend.

"I'm rooting for the Phillies all the way," Westray said.

Rays rooter

One of Westray's fellow Illini coaches is firmly on the other side of the World Series debate. Since his daughter went to work for the Tampa Bay Rays two years ago, UI wrestling coach and lifelong Chicago Cubs fan Mark Johnson has a second favorite MLB team.

"I've become a huge Rays fan," he said.

Tricia Johnson, a Centennial graduate and the 2002 News-Gazette All-Area Player of the Year in girls' soccer, is the community relations coordinator for the Rays. Since Tricia became a Rays employee, Mark Johnson estimates he's attended about 15 games at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Fla.

He'll add one more to that number tonight. Thanks to Tricia, Mark Johnson has a ticket for Game 2 of the World Series. It will be the first time he's attended a World Series game.

"We're really excited about it," said Johnson, who expects to have a prime view of the game. "Whenever we go (to Tropicana Field), we have great seats."

Top 25 treat

Anne Kordes had two major reasons to celebrate Monday. The former Illini volleyball assistant marked her 33rd birthday. And her St. Louis Billikens broke into the national rankings for the first time in program history at No. 25.

"As you can imagine, this ranking was a home run as far as presents go," Kordes said.

In 2004, Kordes took over a team that finished 9-22 the previous season. By Year 3 of her tenure, the Billikens were 22-9. At 17-4, the current St. Louis team is headed toward its third straight 20-win season.

"This ranking is actually very personal because this program has been built with the blood, sweat and tears of people I truly care about," Kordes said. "All of the staff and players who were a part of this program over the last five seasons believed in each other, and it's a testament to what can happen when you bring talented people together that want nothing more than for the group to succeed."

St. Louis has received votes in every regular season AVCA poll this season and was on the cusp of breaking into the Top 25 the previous two weeks at No. 27. On Monday, the Billikens finally made the leap.

"I knew we needed to continue winning and we needed some ranked teams to drop a match," Kordes said. "The only thing I have been focused on is winning because, of course, what other teams do is out of our hands."

The list

Senior Katie Engel, already ranked third on the all-time Illini cross-country charts for 6 kilometers, improved her career-best time by seven seconds Saturday at the Pre-Nationals meet in Terre Haute, Ind. The top 10 Illini individuals at this distance:
NAME    TIME    DATE    MEET
Angela Bizzarri    19:59    Oct. 28, 2007    Big Ten Championships
Cassie Hunt    20:05    Nov. 21, 2005    NCAA Championships
Katie Engel    20:23    Oct. 18, 2008    Pre-Nationals
Stephanie Simms    20:31    Nov. 21, 2005    NCAA Championships
Jaime Turilli    20:49    Nov. 13, 2004    NCAA Midwest Regional
Danelle Woods    20:54    Nov. 9, 2007    NCAA Midwest Regional
Stephanie Baliga    20:56    Oct. 28, 2007    Big Ten Championships
Maggie Carroll    21:00    Nov. 21, 2005    NCAA Championships
Katie Coppin    21:01    Nov. 21, 2005    NCAA Championships
Kristin Sutherland    21:04    Oct. 18, 2008    Pre-Nationals

The number

9-3
Singles record of Illini men’s tennis player Roy Kalmanovich. The sophomore leads Illinois in singles wins.

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