As Lent came to a close yesterday, so too did the scoring drought.
The Penn State baseball team used a six-run eighth inning to take an 11-1 win from Northwestern yesterday at Beaver Field for its third win of the weekend. The Nittany Lions (13-19, 8-8 Big Ten) won Friday's game against the Wildcats (14-15, 6-8) 6-4, then split a doubleheader on Saturday -- dropping the first game 2-1, but taking the second 4-3 -- before yesterday's win.
Since running up 10 runs against Ohio State on April 5, the Lions had failed to bring more than three runs in six of their last nine games before yesterday.
In the eighth frame, Penn State sent eleven hitters to the plate and scored five runs before the Wildcats could record the second out of the inning.
Almost lost in the shuffle was the performance of Penn State junior right-hander Jim Farrell. In perhaps his best game this season, the Harleysville native struck out 11 batters -- his highest total at Penn State -- and allowed just one earned run in eight innings of work for the win. After the game, Farrell said he was able to use his split-fingered fastball and slider to keep hitters off balance, but that he couldn't let up late in the game with the lead.
"I tried to get ahead [in the count] first of all," Farrell said. "No lead is safe with aluminum bats."
The Lions also got a strong effort from freshman right fielder Derrick Barr, who went three-for-five from the plate after missing both of Saturday's games with what was believed to be food poisoning. Barr got Penn State on the board in the first inning yesterday, the first time in the last 15 games that the Lions have scored in their opening at-bat.
After the game, Barr said he had been struggling lately to get on base and that he just wanted to provide a spark at the top of the order.
"I haven't really been doing that lately," Barr said. "I just tried to put the ball in play. I kept battling"
In what was supposed to be a fierce duel between two of the Big Ten's premier pitchers -- Northwestern junior right-hander Dan Konecny and Penn State junior right-hander Clayton Hamilton -- Friday's contest became a slugfest.
Hamilton's 4.1 inning performance was his second-shortest outing of the season, while Konecny surrendered a third-inning grand slam to Penn State freshman Lance Thompson, which proved to be the decisive play of the game.
The true pitching duel of the weekend was Saturday's first game, which featured the Wildcats' J.A. Happ against the Lions' Josh Palm. Happ's pinpoint control devastated Penn State hitters all day.
The sophomore left-hander surrendered just four hits and no walks in seven innings for the win, while throwing 18 first-pitch strikes and only 18 total balls.
However, Penn State came back to win a sloppy second game in extra innings to take a 2-1 series edge. With the game knotted at three in the ninth inning, Northwestern second baseman Eric Roeder threw a double-play ball into the dirt at first base and Penn State second baseman Mike DeRenzo came around from third base to score the winning run.
In all four games, the team that won made no errors while the losing team made at least one. Penn State baseball coach Joe Hindelang said the small things win Big Ten baseball games.
"The thing we try to do is limit the base runners from walks and hit batters and then you try to play good defense," Hindelang said. "The key is to make all the routine plays."
