Senior center fielder Brandon Eckerle slides as Michigan catcher Zach Johnson attempts to guard the plate March 27 at Ray Fisher Stadium at Wilpon Baseball Complex in Ann Arbor. The Spartans defeated the Wolverines, 8-2 to take both games of a double header.
One week after winning the program’s first Big Ten championship since 1979, the MSU baseball team is trying to do something it never has done: win a Big Ten Tournament.
The Spartans (34-19 overall, 15-9 Big Ten), who clinched a share of the Big Ten championship with Illinois last week, head to Huntington Park in Columbus, Ohio, Thursday to face Purdue (37-18, 15-10) at 3:35 p.m. The tournament berth marks MSU’s ninth appearance in the Big Ten Tournament and second in the last three years.
“If you want to continue playing after this weekend, we have to win it down there,” MSU head coach Jake Boss Jr. said. “If you take care of business, we can kind of treat it like it’s a three-game series, though, because we do have the bye. If we win three games, we’ll win the tournament.”
MSU is 7-16 in eight previous appearances in the Big Ten Tournament with the last win coming in 2004 against Penn State.
As the No. 1 and 2 seeds, respectively, Illinois and MSU enter the tournament with a bye as the other four teams faced off Wednesday. No. 4-seed Ohio State used a late rally in the first game of the tournament to down No. 5-seed Minnesota 5-3. In the next matchup of the day, No. 3 Purdue beat No. 6 Penn State, 7-2, setting up Thursday’s matchup between the Spartans and Boilermakers.
MSU picked up some key victories down the stretch against Purdue, sweeping the Boilermakers in three games during the first weekend in May. Senior first baseman Jeff Holm had a big series against the Boilermakers, collecting seven hits, including three home runs and nine RBIs to lead the Spartan offense.
Heading into the Big Ten Tournament, the Spartans stressed importance of parlaying the confidence from their Big Ten championship victory last week into success against tournament foes.
“The season is pretty long throughout the Big Ten, and to have more wins than any other team in the conference, that shows a lot about our team,” senior outfielder Brandon Eckerle said.
“We’re going to go down there with a lot of confidence. We’re the number one team in the conference, and we have to go down there and prove that.”
Big Ten Pitcher of the Year senior Kurt Wunderlich (9-2) — who will start the first tournament game for the Spartans — said MSU will bring plenty of energy into the weekend. In his last start, Wunderlich allowed just three hits and collected three strikeouts in a complete game shutout over Northwestern.
As the MSU prepares to play its first game of the tournament, the goal for the weekend was simple when the Spartans broke practice Monday at McLane Baseball Stadium at Kobs Field: Win.
“We broke every huddle before in the regular season with ‘Big Ten champs,’ and we accomplished that,” Wunderlich said.
“We’re hungry still, and we have to win this tournament to get to the postseason.”
Support student media! Please consider donating to The State News and help fund the future of journalism.
