May 13, 2006
Box Score
Chicago, Ill.- Behind a third consecutive 20-hit outburst and 15 runs in the fifth and sixth innings, the UIC baseball team handily defeated Butler 20-5 in Saturday's doubleheader nightcap at Les Miller Field to clinch its fifth consecutive Horizon League regular season championship.
With a sweep of Saturday's twinbill and UW-Milwaukee's 4-3 loss to Youngstown State, the Flames (30-17, 19-6 Horizon League) wrapped up their sixth conference regular season title in seven seasons and the No. 1 seed in the 2006 Horizon League Baseball Championship.
The victory also gave UIC 30 wins in a single season for the seventh straight year.
Holding a 4-2 lead heading into the bottom of the fifth, UIC broke the game open with nine runs on 10 hits in the frame. The Flames posted six more runs in the bottom of the sixth to take a 19-2 advantage.
UIC jumped ahead quickly when Bart Babineaux jacked a two-run homer in the first inning. The home run extended his Horizon League-leading total to 16 and pushed him to within one blast of tying Frank Provenzano's 21-year-old single-season school record of 17 round-trippers.
Babineaux just missed tying the school record in his next two at-bats, flying out deep to the warning track both times.
Babineaux drove in four runs in a 2-for-4 plate performance in Saturday's second game, while Justin Johnson (4-for-5) and Ted Rosinski (3-for-4) drove in three runs each.
Starter Joe Skinner scattered four hits and two runs in six innings of work to improve to 7-4 on the season.
UIC scored 38 runs and bashed 46 hits combined during Saturday's doubleheader. In their last three games the Flames have scored 61 runs and recorded 72 hits while allowing opponents to score just 11 runs in that same span.
The Flames will close out their home schedule on Sunday with a single game versus the Bulldogs beginning at 12:00 p.m. Central at Les Miller Field. UIC will honor its seniors in a postgame ceremony.
