March 30, 2007
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Despite a crowd of 844 on hand for the Purdue home opener, the Boilermakers were unable to give the home fans a happy ending with a 14-13 loss to Illinois at Lambert Field.
The Boilermakers are now 10-9 overall and 0-1 in the Big Ten, while the Illini are 8-9 and 1-0.
Purdue fell behind 6-0 after Illinois' first at-bats and 10-1 through three-and-a-half innings and were unable to pull off the incredible comeback. After pulling to within one in the eighth inning, the Boilermakers stranded the tying run on third in the bottom of the ninth.
"We didn't play vry good baseball today," head coach Doug Schreiber said. "Our pitching and fielding let us down, and our hitting didn't get started until the second half of the game.
"Letting up six runs in the first is hard, but we still had plenty of baseball left to make up that deficit. We just didn't do a good job of responding early offensively and our defense and pitching couldn't stop them from putting up more runs and giving us a chance."
Starting pitcher Josh Lindblom, making his first start in front of his hometown crowd, was shaky in the early going, giving up six runs in the first inning. On the day, Lindblom (2-3) allowed 10 runs on 12 hits in 3.2 innings.
Trailing 10-1 in the fourth, the Boilermakers put two runs on the board on an RBI triple by Jon Moore and a groundball by Eric Osborn, but Illinois responded with a run in the fifth. John Cummins singled in a run in the bottom of the fifth to answer the Illinois run and make the score 11-4.
The Illini extended their lead to 13-4 with two runs in the seventh, but a four-run seventh for Purdue inched the Boilermakers closer at 13-8. With the bases loaded, Dan Black doubled down the right field line to drive in all three runners and then scored on a single by Osborn.
Illinois added a run in the eighth, but again the Boilermakers closed the gap, scoring five times in the home half of the eighth inning to make it a one-run game. Spencer Ingaldson homered to right to start the scoring in the inning and the Boilermakers picked up RBI hits from Alex Jaffee, Black and Osborn to make the score 14-13.
Ingaldson doubled in the ninth with one out and moved to third on a groundout, but was left 90 feet from home when Illinois' Jake Toohey picked up the final out by strikeout for his first save of the season.
Illini starter Tanner Roark (2-1) was credited with the win, pitching 6.0 innings and allowing seven runs on seven hits.
Ingaldson had the hot bat for the Boilermakers, going 4-for-5 at the plate with three runs and one RBI. Black drove home four runs with two doubles and Osborn added three RBI.
"You hate to lose a conference game at home," Schreiber said, "but there are 31 more conference games to play. There is plenty of season left for us to correct what went wrong today."
Purdue and Illinois return to Lambert Field on Saturday for a 1 p.m. doubleheader. The first game of the twinbill will be broadcast on the internet at purduesports.com, and the nightcap will be able to be heard on WLAS 1410 in the Lafayette area and on the web.