It took close to five hours for the MSU baseball team to move one step closer to a Big Ten Tournament championship.
The No. 2 seeded Spartans (35-19 overall, 16-9 Big Ten) shook off a two hour and 15 minute rain delay and used a collaborative hitting effort to rally behind senior pitcher Kurt Wunderlich to defeat Purdue, 7-1. With the win Thursday, MSU remains undefeated against the Boilermakers on the year, earlier sweeping them in three games during the first weekend in May.
First-Team Academic All-American and senior center fielder Brandon Eckerle led the game off with a single for the Spartans. After a walk to sophomore second baseman Ryan Jones, Eckerle would come around to score on a single by sophomore third baseman Torsten Boss. Jones also would score later in the inning to give MSU the early 2-0 lead.
The Spartans weren’t done scoring in the bottom of the second inning, as junior shortstop Justin Scanlon got on base with lead off single . Two batters later, sophomore left fielder Jordan Keur singled to score Scanlon and chase Purdue pitcher Calvin Gunter from the game. MSU would tack on four more runs in the inning to extend its lead to 6-0.
After Purdue second baseman Eric Charles led off the top of the third inning with a first pitch home run to left field, the Boilermakers couldn’t get a handle on Wunderlich for the rest of the afternoon.
Wunderlich, who earlier in the week was named Big Ten Pitcher of the Year, held Purdue to one run on the day with just six hits and he struck out five to pick up his conference-leading tenth win of the year.
MSU will resume play in the tournament at 7:05 p.m. on Friday at Huntington Park in Columbus, Ohio against the winner of No. 1 seeded Illinois and No. 4 seeded Ohio State.
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