Boilers split doubleheader
with Minnesota Saturday
By Seth Schwartz
Senior
Writer
Toward the end of the first game of Saturday's
doubleheader, Purdue started to get things going against Minnesota.
Purdue lost 6-4 to Minnesota Friday afternoon,
then Chadd Blasko got off to a rough start in the first game of Saturday’s
doubleheader. He gave up nine runs, five unearned, in 1.2 innings and
Purdue trailed the Gophers 10-1 going into the bottom of the second
inning.
The Boilers managed to close the gap to 10-6 in
the second when Nate Sickler hit an inside-the-park grand slam.
"It was my first inside-the-park home run,"
said Sickler, who went 4 for 10 in the series with five runs and five
RBI. "I didn’t even see what happened. I got to second base
and the coach was waving me and then I got to third base and coach kept
waving me. It was exciting."
The two teams would trade runs in the sixth inning,
making the score 11-7.
In the bottom of the seventh inning, Purdue loaded
the bases. Daniel Underwood singled to score Harrell and the bases remained
full. Dave Blomberg followed that with a single, which scored John Gusich
and Mike Duursma and advanced Underwood to third. Blomberg tried to
stretch the hit into a double and was thrown out on a close play at
second base. Sickler came to the plate with two outs and struck out
swinging.
"That’s kind of the at-bat that you dream
about, bottom of the ninth, except it was the bottom of the seventh,"
Sickler said. "There was a runner on third and there were two outs.
I wasn’t even thinking about hitting a home run. I just wanted
to get a base hit to tie the game. He threw a couple of sliders away
and got me to chase them. It’s frustrating, but it happens."
Minnesota escaped with an 11-10 victory over the
Boilermakers.
However, the firepower the Purdue hitters had found
in that seventh inning followed them into the second game of the doubleheader
as the Boilers jumped out to a 3-0 lead after three innings, scoring
two in the first and another in the third inning.
"When you get down 2-0 in a four game series,
you just want to even it up," said Sickler.
David Gassner controlled the rest of the game with
his pitching and allowed himself to earn his first win of the season.
Gassner struck out seven batters and allowed only two runs on nine hits
in the 4-2 complete game victory.
Sickler said, "Before the game, he was talking
to me and said, ‘I brought my "A" game today.’ When he says
that, you know he’s going to have a good game. It was nasty (Saturday)."
Sunday’s game was canceled due to a below-zero
wind chill factor in West Lafayette.
The Big Ten Conference will decide today whether
or not the two teams will make up the game.
"It would’ve been nice to play (Sunday),"
Sickler said. "It was cold (Saturday), but when you looked at it
outside (Sunday) … it just would’ve been a good story to tell
your kids."
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