The Illinois State baseball team secured a 7-2 victory over Eastern Kentucky on Friday at Earle Combs Stadium in Richmond, Kentucky. With this win, the Redbirds improved their season record to 8-5.
Junior Graham Mastros and redshirt sophomore Brayden Bakes led the offensive effort for Illinois State, each recording three hits. Mastros hit his fifth home run of the season and added two doubles, while Bakes contributed an RBI double among his hits.
On the pitching side, junior Lucas Foley came in as a reliever for senior Thomas Harper and earned his fourth win of the season, which leads the Missouri Valley Conference. The pair combined for nine strikeouts, marking the fifth time this year that Illinois State has achieved nine or more strikeouts in a game.
Eastern Kentucky took an early lead with a run in the first inning. In response, junior Ryan Bakes tied it up with a leadoff home run in the second inning. After two scoreless innings, Illinois State pulled ahead in the fifth when senior Josh Outlaw drove in senior Nolan Barry on a fielder’s choice following singles by Barry and junior Luke Stulga.
In the sixth inning, Illinois State loaded the bases with two singles and a hit-by-pitch before Barry drove in two runs with another single to extend their lead to 4-1. Eastern Kentucky narrowed the gap to 4-2 in their half of the sixth inning.
Mastros increased Illinois State’s advantage with a solo home run in the seventh inning. In the ninth, doubles from Mastros and Brayden Bakes helped add two more runs for a final score of 7-2.
Senior Thomas Harper allowed one run during his outing—the third time this season he has limited opponents to just one run—and recorded three strikeouts. He has notched at least three strikeouts in all four starts so far this year.
After entering during the fifth inning, Foley pitched his longest outing of 2026 at 4.1 innings and set a new season-best with six strikeouts.
Brayden Bakes went 3-for-5 at bat for his seventh multi-hit game of the season—a team best—while senior Nolan Berry had his second multi-hit performance within three games after going 2-for-4. Sophomore Eric Machej extended his hitting streak to five games by collecting two hits during this contest.
Mastros’ solo homerun was his fifth of both this season and matched his career-high for homers in one year; he also extended his hitting streak to four games and now has hits in eight out of Illinois State’s last nine contests.
Illinois State Redbirds are affiliated with Illinois State University and compete across NCAA Division I events nationwide (https://goredbirds.com/). The program benefits from resources such as news updates, schedules, rosters, fan engagement tools (https://goredbirds.com/), support from initiatives like Redbird Athletics Excellence Fund aimed at competitiveness (https://goredbirds.com/), and facilities including OSF HealthCare Athletics Training Center used for student-athlete preparation (https://goredbirds.com/).
For ongoing updates about Illinois State Baseball or information about tickets and athletic programs visit the official website or follow their social media channels.
