March 14, 2010
EVANSVILLE, Ind. - After dropping four one-run games this season, the Purdue baseball team turned the tables in defeating host school Evansville 4-3 in 10 innings in the Dunn Hospitality Classic finale at Braun Stadium on Sunday.
Trailing 2-0 through five innings, the Boilers (3-7) rallied to tie the game with a pair of runs in the sixth and, after trading runs with Purple Aces (6-10) in the ninth, clinched their first weekend "series" victory of the season with a lone run in the top of the 10th.
Tied 3-3 after nine complete, Barret Arthur got the extra-inning rally started with a one-out double down the right field line. Barrett Serrato followed with an opposite field single to left to plate Arthur for the go ahead run and a 4-3 Purdue edge.
Reliever Drew Wurdack (1-1), who picked up his first victory of the year with 1 2/3 innings out of the bullpen, worked around a leadoff walk in the home half of the 10th with a strikeout, a caught stealing and carom off of third baseman Cameron Perkins that went directly to Serrato at short for a game ending 6-5-3 groundout.
Evansville opened the scoring in the second, plating a pair of runs off of Boiler starter Matt Jansen on a pair of hits and a Boilermaker error.
Jansen, who did not earn a decision over seven solid innings, settled down and held the Aces scoreless over the next five frames. The senior southpaw left prior to the eighth allowing two runs, one earned, on three hits with three walks and 10 strikeouts.
Offensively, Purdue took a while to get going in the game. Including a one-out single and caught stealing by Eric Charles in the first, the Boilers sent the minimum three hitters to the plate in each of the first five innings against Aces' starter Scott Scheumann.
Scheumann, a freshman who started a midweek contest against Kentucky, finally ran out of gas in the sixth to pave the way for Purdue's bats to tie the game.
Payton Bieker led off the sixth getting hit by Scheumann to reach with nobody out. A strikeout by Arthur was followed with a Serrato single through the right side of the UE infield and a walk to Jonathan Lilly that loaded the bases and forced the UE starter from the game.
Charles, who finished the game 2 for 5, drove home, rudely greeted reliever Jake Naumann with a two-run double down the right field line to plate Bieker and Serrato and tie the game 2-2.
Both teams plated runs in the ninth, the Boilers on an RBI single by Kevin Plawecki and the Aces answering with run-scoring grounder by Nate Smith that took a wicked hop over Charles' head an into right for a single.
UE closer Tom Heithoff (1-2) was charged with the loss after allowing two runs on four hits in two innings of work.
The Boilermakers will continue their eight-game spring break trip with a pair of games at Eastern Kentucky on Tuesday and Wednesday. First pitch for the opener against the Colonels on Tuesday is scheduled for 3 p.m. ET.