March 5, 2000
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. - The Purdue baseball team lost its second-straight game for the first time this season, as mistakes proved to be costly in the early innings. The Boilers drop to 7-3 on the season and the No. 6 Alabama Crimson Tide move to 12-5 on the year. Alabama has won 28-consecutive regular season series including this weekend's three games to one victory.
"We talk about making ten great plays per game," Purdue head coach Doug Schreiber said. "Today we had seven, but it all came from defense and pitching, we had none offensively. You have to tip your hat to their pitcher, but our hitters have to find a way."
The Boilers opened the day with JUCO transfer Ben Quick on the hill. Quick came into today's rubber game with a 1-0 record, and a 1.17 ERA. Quick opened the game with a ground out to the Tide's second baseman, but followed that by giving up a triple to Darren Wood. Purdue right fielder Daniel Underwood made a diving attempt at the sharply hit line drive, but couldn't come up with it and it rolled to the fence. By the time Underwood got the ball in, Wood was at third. With a runner at third, Quick got Bozanich to ground to third baseman Daryl Hallada, but Hallada couldn't come up with the ball. The Tide's first run scored and Alabama had a runner on. Brent Boyd followed that with his third homerun of the year to give the Tide three of their five runs on the day. Quick worked through the seven and eight hitters to close out the inning, but the damage had already been done. Quick settled down following the opening inning and pitched into the eighth only giving up two more runs to a highly offensive Alabama team. The closing line on Quick was seven innings, giving up five hits and five runs, four of which where earned.
"Ben pitched exceptionally well today," Schreiber said. "We didn't really give him enough defensive support in the first inning. We would have liked to have given him a little more run support. You have to tip your hat to Murphy too, I didn't think our hitters did a great job of making adjustments. When you don't get any run support it is hard to win those games."
While Quick settled into a grove for the Boilermakers, `Bama starter Scott Murphy was zoned in from inning-one. Murphy, 11-0 in his career and 3-0 on the season, continued his winning ways, shutting down the Boilers. Murphy held Purdue to three hits in his complete game shutout. Murphy went the distance, striking out six and holding the Boilers to an impressive zero walks. The Boilers' Daniel Underwood proved to be the lone bright spot at the plate as the freshman went 2-for-3 on the day.
Purdue will now return home before travelling to Duke and East Carolina for a week long stint March 12-18.