Sunday's Touchdowns And Other Scores

Another day of conference action, another day of remarkable offensive production. Oh, am I going to have trouble picking an All-Weekend side this week. I'll have to review nearly everyone's stats for three days. Wait a minute. You don't care about how many box scores I have to review. You just want baseball talk. Have it your way, then. Here's what happened today.

Michigan 21 Michigan State 9 (box)
In a score that looks more like an October meeting on the gridiron, Michigan swept the weekend series from MSU. U of M's Eric Rose's big weekend continued with a three hit, four run, five RBI, stolen base game. Jason Chrisitan had two hits, four runs and three RBI. Doug Pickens homered and drove in three. Needless to say, a number of the Maize and Blue had big days.

Brandon Doherty, Sean Walker and Kyle Day each drove in a pair of runs for the Spartans. Michigan's Ben Jenzen won the game in relief.

Minnesota 15 Illinois 6 (box)
Gophers' LF Mike Mee went 4 for 4 with three runs scored and three RBI. Dan Lyons added three hits, four runs scored and two RBI. Nate Hanson and Mee both homered for Minnesota. Dustin Braebender (5-1) was the beneficiary of the Gophers Sunday production. Illinois' OF Ryan Snowden continued his bid for first team All-Conference notice with a three hit, two run, two RBI performance. Snowden's three hits were a double, triple and homer.

Iowa 14 Northwestern 10 (box)
The Hawkeyes two touchdowns powered Iowa to a sweep of NU. It's the Hawkeyes first conference sweep in sixteen years. Ben Geelan had five RBI on two hits, including a homer. Travis Sweet also went yard for Iowa amongst his three hits. Sweet also scored twice and drove in three. NU's Antonio Mule had two hits, three RBI, two runs scored and hit his sixth homerun. Nick Erdman (4-2) posted the win.

Ohio State 6 Purdue 3 (box)
Taking three of four from Purdue lifted the Buckeyes into third place in the Big Ten. J.B. Shuck (3-1) scattered five hits and two walks over seven innings. Trey Fausnaugh came in to close the closest thing to a pitcher's duel in the conference today. All-Big Ten 2B Jason Zoeller had two hits, his sixth homer, two runs and two RBI. Eric Fryer had two hits and two RBI.

Eric Osborn and Kyle Reesing both went yard for Purdue.

Indiana 8 Penn State 7 (box)
IU's Jon Fixler had four RBI on two hits. Andrew Means had three hits, two runs scored and his twenty-first stolen base. Chris Squires' 3.2 innings of relief earned him his first win of the year. PSU DH Rob Yodice had three RBI on two hits.

After this weekend of football scores, here's what we've got.

1. Michigan 14-1
2. Minnesota 12-3
T3. Ohio State 11-7
T3. Penn State 11-7
5. Iowa 10-8
6. Illinois 8-10
7. Purdue 8-11
8. Michigan State 6-12
9. Indiana 6-14
10. Northwestern 3-16

If the season ended today, Purdue, Michigan State, Indiana and Northwestern would be out of the conference tournament field. However, the Boilers are clearly still in the hunt. I also believe the Spartans and Hoosiers can play their way back into post-season eligibility. It seems NU's young 'Cats have dug themselves a pretty deep hole to emerge from.