April 16, 2003
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Daniel Underwood belted a three-run home run to help pace the Purdue baseball team to a 6-2 win over the Cincinnati Bearcats on Wednesday afternoon at Lambert Field. The blast by Underwood broke open a 2-0 game and gave the Boilermakers their eighth win in the last 11 games.
With the win, Purdue improved to 19-14 while the loss dropped Cincinnati to 10-25. The Bearcats have lost 15 of their last 19 games.
With Purdue leading 2-0 in the bottom of the fourth, Underwood came to the plate to face Cincinnati reliever Kyle Markle and drove the first pitch he saw over the left field wall. The home run, the fifth of the season for the senior, scored Nick McIntyre and Andy Rempel, who had each singled in the inning.
Purdue broke a scoreless tie in the second inning on an RBI groundout by Eric Wolfe that scored Ben Fritz from third. Fritz began the inning with a bunt single down the third base line and went to third when Brad Kriner's sacrifice bunt was thrown away by Cincy third baseman Brad Dorrmann.
The Boilermakers stretched the advantage to 2-0 in the fourth when McIntyre singled to left to drive home Mitch Koester, who started the inning with a two-out basehit. Rempel had followed Koester's hit with a single through the right side of the infield and was on second base when Underwood unleashed on the pitch from Markle.
Trailing 5-0, Cincinnati pushed across two runs in the sixth to draw to within three. Trae Dauby relieved Purdue starter Luke Howard on the mound and walked two batters and surrendered two singles to yield the two runs. Jason Driscoll came into pitch for the Boilermakers and coaxed Jack Nelson into hitting into a 6-4-3 double play.
The Bearcats threatened again in the seventh, putting runners on first and second with no outs. A sacrifice bunt attempt along the third base line was turned into a fielder's choice as Driscoll came off the mound and shoveled the ball towards third base to retire the lead runner. In the next at-bat, a grounder up the middle was met by a diving Tyler Johnstone, who flipped the ball to second with his glove, starting a 4-6-3 twin-killing.
With the Cincinnati threat snubbed, Purdue tacked on an insurance run in the eighth on a sacrifice fly by Andy Rempel. Kriner led off the inning with a single and stle second before moving to third on a basehit by Koester to bring up Rempel in the RBI situation.
Driscoll, Matt Skripsky and Dustin Glant pitched the final 3.2 innings of shutout ball, yielding just one hit while striking out two to secure the win for Howard. Howard, now 3-2 on the season, limited the Bearcats to three hits over 5.0 innings with no walks and two strikeouts.
Daniel Underwood was one of three Boilermakers to collect two hits on teh afternoon, batting 2-4 with the three-run round tripper. Ben Fritz was 2-3 at the plate while Mitch Koester was 2-4. Each scored one run.
Purdue hits the road this weekend for a four-game Big Ten series in Iowa City agains the Iowa Hawkeyes. First pitch in the series opener is set for 6 p.m. on Friday at Duane Banks Field.