Nine runs and an abused dugout wall into yesterday's game against Iowa, it appeared as though the Penn State baseball team had finally reached its breaking point.
The Nittany Lions (8-21, 3-5 Big Ten) had already dropped the first three games of the series to the Hawkeyes (14-13, 4-4). After blowing a 3-1 lead in the top of the fourth yesterday, Penn State starting pitcher Aaron Markowitz unleashed his frustration on the wall as Wine yanked him after allowing five earned runs over 3.1 innings. The bullpen would add another two in his name.
The rout ensued as the ball changed hands and a two-run advantage turned into a 9-3 hole, but Penn State battled back to an 11-10 win.
"Who knows, maybe a month from now will we be looking at this game as something that was very important," Penn State baseball coach Robbie Wine said.
Nate Price of Iowa hit a ball just over the 370 mark in right field to lead off the game. Already down 1-0, it appeared that the series finale would be more of the same, but for the first time in the series, Penn State clawed its way back, a theme throughout the day.
"It would have been easy for them to roll over and die losing the first three, but they showed some resiliency today, without a doubt," Iowa baseball coach Jack Dahm said. "I don't expect anything else from Robbie Wine's teams. He's going to continue to get them to play hard, and their program just keeps getting better and better."
Penn State took a 3-1 lead playing small ball, stealing bases and moving runners along. Two of the runs were driven in by sacrifice flies. Then, it surrendered its advantage as a seemingly endless torrent of Hawkeye batters reached base in the fourth, including Dusty Napoleon, who hit a two-run homer off the foul pole to get the rally started.
Penn State chipped away. The first boost came with a grand slam by senior Lance Thompson in the home half of the frame to bring the game within 9-8, ultimately tying it before Iowa returned to bat.
"Lance's home run was a key hit and one we haven't had all year," Wine said. "Psychologically and mentally, what goes on in hitters' minds when something like that happens, all of a sudden you're expecting a bad hop to go your way."
And they did, as a ground ball by Thompson in the fifth bounced off Iowa's second baseman and trickled into the outfield for a double, effectively ending his slump to set the stage for James Leitgeb to tie the game at 10.
After closer Gary Amato shut down Iowa in the sixth, Penn State outfielder Brian Ernst scored Rick Marlin to end the game, a fact unknown to many of the 368 in attendance until minutes later.
"There were some goofy decisions that had to be made that wouldn't normally wouldn't have been made. Maybe I need to start doing some more of that stuff," Wine said jokingly. "[We played] every inning like it was the ninth inning."
The Big Ten stipulated before the game that no inning could begin after 12:30 because Iowa had to take a flight out of Harrisburg. Following Ernst's double, the umpire looked at his watch, saw it was after 12:30 and called the game.
The dramatic win salvaged the series as much as it possibly could and aided the mentality of a club that approached rock bottom.
Defensive lapses and pitching miscues left Wine pondering the attitude of his team and it appeared to answer the questions he posed to them following the 11-3 and 2-1 loses yesterday afternoon.
"If we had lost this game, it would've been really bad, not only for us, but for our coaches," Thompson said. "I don't know if they would've had as much confidence in us."
