May 27, 2005

Box Score

The second seed in the tournament, Purdue will now play top-seeded Illinois in the next round of the consolation bracket, scheduled for 3:35 p.m. Friday afternoon and improves its record to 26-29 on the season. After an opening day loss to Ohio State in this double-elimination tournament, fourth-seeded Michigan is knocked-out of the tournament and falls to 41-17 on the season.

Purdue struck first with a run in the top of the second inning. After Neal Gorka laced a double off the wall in centerfield, Eric Osborn singled to right field where Michigan's Matt Butler fielded the ball and gunned it home. Gorka slid in and was able keep Maize and Blue backstop Jeff Kunkel from fielding the ball cleanly to score the run and make it a 1-0 Boiler advantage early in the game.

With runners on second and third in the top of the third inning, Eric Wolfe lined a single up the middle to score Mitch Hilligoss and Dane Wolfe and make it a 3-0 Purdue lead. The Boilermakers would add another run in the inning on a single by John Hunter and an error by U-M left fielder Brad Roblin. The miscue allowed Wolfe to score from second to make it a 4-0 game.

Michigan would get on the board in the bottom of the third when Leif Mahler scored on a double by Chris Getz up the middle making it a 4-1 game.

Purdue would tack on three more runs in the top of the seventh inning. Dane Wolfe laid down a sacrifice bunt that was fielded by third baseman A.J. Schiedt who threw the ball away in an attempt to get Wolfe out at first. Andy Dahl came all the way around from first to score to make it 5-1 Purdue, while Schiedt advanced all the way to third on the error. Two batters later, Mike Coles singled through the left side to score Dane Wolfe and make it a 6-1 game. After a single by Eric Wolfe advanced Coles to third, Hunter then stepped up and singled to score Coles and make it a 7-1 advantage in favor of the Boilermakers.

The bottom of the seventh saw the Wolverines take a chunk out of Purdue's lead by scoring a pair of runs. A Chris Getz single into right field scored Mahler, while Eric Rose would score when Kyle Bohm hit into a fielders choice to third base to make it a 7-3 game.

With the bases loaded in the bottom of the eighth inning, Michigan sophomore Leif Mahler singled to right field to knock-in Scheidt and Matt Butler and make it a 7-5 ballgame with runners on the corners and nobody down for U-M. Chris Toneguzzi was then called in from the pen as the third pitcher in the inning for Doug Schreiber's squad and got Eric Rose to ground out to first and then Getz to fly out to center. On the fly-ball, Mike Schmidt tagged up from third to make it a one-run game at 7-6. Roblin then stepped in and poked the ball down the right field line where Neal Gorka made a diving attempt but couldn't make the catch. Mahler came all the way around from first on what would be a triple for Roblin to tie the game at 7-7 heading into the ninth.

On the first pitch of the top of the ninth inning by Ali Husain, Hilligoss launched one to deep right-center field and over a leaping Eric Rose and the fence for his fourth homer of the season to give Purdue an 8-7 lead. On the very next pitch of the inning, Mike Coles cranked a solo shot to left-center to make it a 9-7 game on his fifth dinger of the year. The back-to-back jacks sealed the win for Purdue and eliminated the Wolverines from the tournament.

Big Ten Baseball

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