March 28, 2009
Evanston, Ill. - The Purdue baseball team saw its season-high five-game winning streak come to an end with a 13-4 loss to Northwestern in the second game of a Big Ten series at Rocky Miller Park on Saturday.
The defeat dropped the Boilers back to .500 for the year at 10-10 and 1-1 in league games. The Wildcats, who rapped out 15 hits in the victory, snapped an eight-game losing streak and improved to 5-17 overall and 1-1 in the Big Ten.
Northwestern took advantage of a Boilermaker squad that never seemed to quite get on track to jump out to an early lead, and then coasted to the nine-run victory. The Boilers were held hitless until the fifth inning and trailed 7-0 before finally snapping the shutout with a single run in the sixth.
Northwestern, which plated single runs in the first and second on a sac fly by Chad Noble and a solo home run by Chris Lashmet, added three runs on four hits in the third inning to jump out to a 5-0 lead.
The Boilers finally strung together their first two hits in the game in the fifth, back-to-back one-out singles by Nick Overmyer and Eric Charles, but NU starter Joe Muraski struck out Alex Jaffee and Eric Nielsen to end the inning and quash the threat.
After tacking two runs in the bottom of the frame, NU answered the Boilers' lone run in the top of the sixth with five of its own in the home half of the inning to safely put the game out of reach at 12-1.
The two squads traded runs in the seventh to make it 13-2, and the Boilers added a pair runs in the ninth for the final 13-4 tally.
NU's Muraski (2-3) picked up the victory with six innings of work on the mound. The left-hander became the first southpaw starter to beat Purdue this season, allowing just one run on five hits. He finished with eight strikeouts and no walks in his sixth start of the year.
Reliever Francis Brooks worked the final three innings, surrendering three runs on one hits and three walks, to nail down his first save of the season.
Purdue starter Matt Jansen (2-3) dropped his third decision of the year after giving up seven runs, six earned, on nine hits in five innings. The Boiler lefty struck out four and walked two in the loss.
Collectively, the top four hitters in the NU batting order, Tommy Finn, Trevor Stevens, Jake Goebbert and Noble, team up to finish the game 9 for 17 with six RBIs and 10 runs scored.
Individually, Goebbert highlighted the offensive outburst, finishing 4 for 4 with a double, three RBIs and three runs scored. Stevens added three runs scored for the Cats, while Finn and Noble each scored twice. Lashmet chipped in by going 3 for 4 with his first homer of the season and three more runs driven in.
For Purdue, Tyler Spillner drove in a pair of runs despite going 0 for 5 at the plate, while Ryan Bridges and Nielsen each had an RBI. Charles scored a pair of runs for the Boilers in the loss.
Purdue and Northwestern are scheduled to wrap up the three-game Big Ten opening series on Sunday at 2 p.m. EDT, however, with foul weather predicted for the Chicagoland area, please check back with purduesports.com for any schedule/time changes that may occur.