The last time Tony Bucciferro took the mound against Purdue, he secured the second win of a three-game sweep that eventually propelled the MSU baseball team to its first Big Ten title in more than three decades.
Opening up a three-game series with the Boilermakers this weekend, the endgame will be much the same for Bucciferro and the Spartans.
After a critical series victory last week against Minnesota to move into second place in the Big Ten, the weekend series with first-place Purdue (32-6 overall, 12-3 Big Ten) likely will carry postseason implications for the Spartans (26-13, 7-5).
Going against a team with the third-best batting average in the nation and sour memories of a season ago, Bucciferro said the Spartans have been waiting for this series all year and will be ready for a competitive atmosphere on the road in West Lafayette, Ind.
“We’ve been looking forward to playing Purdue all season,” said Bucciferro, who is 3-2 with a 3.04 ERA this season as MSU’s Friday pitcher.
“When we were both ranked in the preseason — the top of the Big Ten — we’ve been setting our sights on this weekend for some time. But you know, Friday is a big game. Got to start the series off the right way, keeping a good outlook for the rest of the weekend.”
The last time these teams got together, 2011 Big Ten Pitcher of the Year Kurt Wunderlich outdueled the Boilermakers in the first round of the Big Ten Tournament in Columbus, Ohio, where the Spartans later ended up in the championship game.
With potential playoff ramifications in the Big Ten race on the line this weekend, head coach Jake Boss Jr. said the room for error against an experienced Purdue team is small.
The Boilermakers have six players, including infielders Cameron Perkins and Eric Charles, with a batting average of .331 or greater and have thoroughly terrorized Big Ten pitching rotations this season.
In addition, Purdue touts arguably the conference’s strongest weekend staff, led by seniors Joe Haase (6-0, 3.62 ERA) and Lance Breedlove (6-3, 2.74 ERA).
But Boss said experience is akin to both teams, and the Spartans know what it takes to beat a team like Purdue, which will benefit them in the pursuit for another conference championship.
“They’re all big weekends at this point,” Boss said.
“We’re halfway through, we got four more Big Ten weekends to go and we (can) put ourselves in position, if we play well, to win another championship.”
Having success against the Boilermakers starts with execution at the plate, junior second baseman Ryan Jones said. Jones, junior outfielder Jordan Keur and junior designated hitter Jared Hook all have an average north of .452 during the past 10 games and have led the way for a young MSU offense for much of the season.
And if the Spartans want to take this series and make a run at the top of the conference standings, execution is the name of the game.
“We gotta execute, for one, and we gotta pitch the ball well because they got a lot of good hitters up and down the lineup,” Jones said.
“They’re gonna have a good crowd, and they’re gonna be ready to go, so we gotta be ready for game one and Saturday and Sunday, we gotta do the same thing.”
The Spartans open up a seven-game road trip starting at 4:00 p.m. on Friday, continue in a 2 p.m. matchup Saturday and wrap up the three-game series with Purdue in a 1 p.m. game on Sunday.
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