April 15, 2001
The Purdue baseball team closed a successful weekend at home today with a thrilling 5-4 victory over visitor Penn State, a team that reached the NCAA Super Regionals a year ago. The Boilermakers improve to 19-15 overall, 11-3 in the Big Ten and 6-3 at home. Billy Lester (2-1) was the winning pitcher while Kevin Damiano (1-3) takes the loss.
Penn State jumped to an early lead, scoring runs in both the first and second innings. The Nittany Lions had a chance to score two runs in the first, but thanks to a nice throw from right fielder Daniel Underwood, Penn State catcher Chris Netwall was thrown out at home trying to score.
Purdue put a run on the board when Underwood walked with one out, then advanced to second on a Dave Blomberg single. Nick McIntyre flied out to left field, and as Underwood attempted to advance to third on the fly out, the ball thrown over to third by centerfielder Zach Smithlin bounced away, allowing Underwood to score and close Penn State's lead to 2-1 after three innings.
Despite yielding three doubles in the first inning and another two hits in the second inning, starting pitcher Sean O'Neil hung tough and kept the Boilermakers close. He yielded another run in the top of the fifth and finished with six innings pitched, giving up the three earned runs on eight hits, striking out one and walking two.
The Boilermakers were held scoreless until the bottom of the eighth inning when Brad Kriner, batting in the sixth spot of the lineup, jacked his first home run of the season, closing the gap to 3-2. Despite only being the fourth hit of the day, Purdue was in close range of taking the lead.
Freshman Luke Howard came on in the seventh inning to relieve starter O'Neil. Howard pitched two scoreless innings, allowing just one walk and striking out one. Howard has not given up an earned run in his last six innings.
After Kriner's home run in the bottom of the eighth, Penn State came back and added one more run in the top of the ninth. Billy Lester came on to relieve Howard, pitching the ninth and giving up and earned run. Lester's run was his first earned run in conference play. With the bases loaded, he was able to get John Richmond to ground into a fielder's choice, forcing the out at second.
The Boilermakers were still in striking distance as they entered the bottom of the ninth, trailing by a 4-2 margin. Mitch Koester pinch-hit for John Badylak, and walked. Penn State changed pitchers, electing to put Heath Vink in to the game. Vink walked his first batter, Mike Duursma, putting two runners on with no outs. After facing just two batters, Vink was replaced by Ken Damiano, who yesterday was credited with the loss in game one and the victory in game two. Vink started pitching to Underwood, but was replaced by Damiano who came on to finish the at-bat. Underwood reached base on a sacrifice bunt that resulted in a throwing error by the third baseman. Underwood still received credit for a sacrifice, but was not credited with a hit due to the error. Koester scored from second and Duursma advanced to third. Damiano pitched a lengthy at-bat to Dave Blomberg, who kept himself alive with a few foul tips. Blomberg then reached on a fielder's choice, which scored Duursma to tie the game at 4-4. Underwood was out at second on the fielder's choice. Nick McIntyre stepped to the plate, and hit a ground ball at the shortstop who committed a throwing error on the play, allowing McIntyre to be safe at first. Blomberg was safe at second. Just like the day before in game one, David Harrell stepped to the plate with runners on first and second, facing the same Penn State pitcher. This time, Harrell ripped a double that went all the way to the right field wall, scoring Blomberg from second and capping a thrilling three-run ninth. Harrell finished the day as the lone Boilermaker with two hits, going 2-for-4 with a double and the game-winning RBI. He finished the weekend 7-for-14 with five RBI and two runs scored, including game-winning shots in Saturday's first game and today's game.
The Boilermakers will play five games this week. They travel to South Bend, Ind., on Tuesday to play Notre Dame at Covaleski Stadium. On Wednesday, they return home for a 3 p.m. against Illinois State before travelling to Champaign, Ill., this weekend for a four-game series with Illinois.