Garner Tosses Complete Game As Spartans Shut Out No.13 Purdue

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 By Sean Gagnier
@SeanGagnier

Spartans pitcher David Garner took things into his own hands on Sunday when he threw a complete game shutout, while fanning seven to lead his Spartans to a 5-0 win over the No. 13 Purdue Boilermakers.

During the nine innings that Garner was on the mound, he allowed just five Purdue hits - impressive as Purdue entered Sunday as the third best batting team in the country. The shutout was the first the Boilermakers suffered this season.

The win was Garner's first complete game of his career and the second in three days for Spartans pitching. Tony Bucciferro threw eight innings against Purdue on Friday in Michigan State's 6-2 loss that day. Sunday's win allowed the Spartans to avoid the sweep by the Boilermakers who won in walk-off fashion in the 14th inning Saturday night.

Michigan State got on the board first in the fourth inning when Torsten Boss, Ryan Krill and Justin Scanlon all contributed RBI singles to the effort. The three runs would be all Garner would need as he did not allow a runner to reach base on balls and surrendered just two hits in the final four innings of the game.

The Spartans would tack on two more runs in the eighth and ninth innings, with Jared Hook hitting an RBI single in the eighth and Scanlon with his own RBI single in the ninth. 

No. 13 Purdue Takes First Two Games From Spartans

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By Sean Gagnier
@SeanGagnier 

The Spartan baseball team traveled to West Lafayette, Ind. to take on No. 13 Purdue in a three-game weekend series. First on the mound for the Spartans was Tony Bucciferro, the ace of the staff, and despite giving Michigan State a complete game in the first game of the series, the Spartans fell 6-2. On Saturday, the Spartans lost a 14-inning heart breaker to the Boilermakers, 4-3.

Friday

Michigan State went up against Purdue's ace, Joe Haase, who improved to 7-0 on the season, allowing just one run and maintaining his perfect record. Haase gave the Boilermakers seven innings of work while giving up six hits and fanning three. 

In Bucciferro's eight-inning outing he scattered eight Boilermaker hits, while allowing six runs, four earned. Purdue struck big in the fourth inning when RF Barrett Sarrato turned on a Bucciferro pitch and sent the ball over the fences for a grand slam - erasing the one-run lead the Spartans had and putting the Boilermakers up 4-1.

Two unearned Boilermaker runs came across in the seventh inning to extend their lead to 6-1. With the win Purdue improved it's nation-leading winning percentage to .846 and their record to 33-6. Michigan State failed to scratch across another run until the ninth inning when they loaded the bases with no outs.

With the bases loaded and no one out the Spartans bounced into a double play, which allowed a run to score but all but put the nail in the Spartans coffin. 

Jordan Keur improved his team-leading batting average to .406, by going 2-for-4 and being the only Spartan with more than one hit.

Saturday

The Spartans were in familiar territory on Saturday when they took the Purdue Boilermakers into 14 innings, but for the first time in seven attempts, Michigan State did not come out on top in the extra inning match-up, falling to Purdue, 4-3.

Both pitchers were on their game on Saturday - with a pitchers duel going on, the Spartans did not score until they were able to get three in the eighth inning. Torsten Boss cleared the bases with two outs in the top of the eighth for the Spartans when he took a pitch and drove it into the gap.

Andrew Waszak was on the mound for the Spartans and went 7.2 innings, exiting in the eighth inning having allowed just one run on the day. Waszak was in line for the win with closer Tony Wieber on the mound with a 0.94 ERA. But Wieber didn't seem to have it on Saturday.

With one out in the ninth, Wieber loaded the bases, but after getting a fly out for the second out of the inning, a clutch hit plated the two tying runs, tying the game a three and sending it into extras. The Spartans threatened but did not score in the 11th inning when they squandered a Ryan Jones single and Torsten Boss reaching on an error with no outs.

Purdue took home the win in the 14th when Tyler Spillner was able to reach first base on a fielding error by Jones. The next batter, Eric Charles, got on first on a throwing error by Boss. With men on first and second, a wild pitch moved them each up 90-ft. Cameron Perkins then singled to right field to score Spillner and win the game for the Boilermakers, 4-3.