Michigan, Purdue Maintain Top Spots

Hope you are enjoying this Friday night across the Big Ten. So far, it's been more of the same around the conference. Michigan mauled another team. Purdue keeps winning and Josh Lindblom piles up the saves in the process. It's always singles night when Ohio State wins.

Perhaps, just perhaps, all of this repetition will help sort out the conference race. Three more games on tap for everyone this weekend and three more weekends left before the conference tournament gets underway. (I can't believe how this season is flying by.)

Here's what happened today:

Michigan 14 Indiana 6
Derek VanBuskirk followed his three-homer, nine RBI Sunday with another homer and five RBI's today. VanBuskirk had three hits as did Adam Abraham who also went yard and drove in three. Leif Mahler and Nate Recknagel also were members of the three-hit club. Zach Putnam went seven innings yielding seven hits, two walks and five earned runs to move to 4-0. Tyler Rogers had two hits and three RBI for IU.

Purdue 6 Minnesota 2
Matt Bischoff gives up eight hits, two walks and two earned runs over 5.1 innings to collect the victory. Josh Lindblom posts save number ten by working the final 1.2 innings. Brandon Haveman had three hits, a run scored and a RBI. Johnathan Lilly drove in two. Jeff DeSmidt had three hits while Nate Hanson and Eric Decker both had two hits, a run scored and a RBI for the Gophers.

Ohio State 11 Northwestern 2
Jake Hale (4-1) works eight innings of eight-hit baseball to claim the victory. The OSU righthander allowed three walks and two earned runs. OSU collected fourteen singles amongst their seventeen hits. Dan Burkhart had three hits and three RBI. Justin Miller had three hits, a run scored and two RBI. Michael Arp also had three hits while scoring twice. NU's Jake Owens homered amongst his two hits and had one RBI and run scored. Jake Goebbert and Max Mann both had two-hit games.

Iowa 16 Michigan State 2
Iowa's Brock Alberts holds the Spartans to seven hits and one earned run over eight innings to impove to 4-3. The Hawkeyes banged out twenty hits. Wes Freie led the way with a pair of hits and four RBI. T.J. Catlado had two hits, two runs scored and two RBI. MSU's Chris Roberts had a pair of hits.

Illinois 16 Penn State 11 (8th inning)
The Illini's Daniel Webb has four hits and four RBI. John Schlichter has three hits, three runs scored and three RBI. PSU's Rob Yodice has a pair of hits, two runs scored and three RBI. There's already 27 runs on thirty-seven hits in the eighth. (I'm not sure if it's raining in Champaign, but GameTracker is stuck on the bottom of the 8th. This one may be over by now.)

Onto the leader board:

Michigan 16-1
Purdue 13-4
Ohio State 9-7
Illinois 9-7 *
Penn State 8-8*
Northwestern 8-9
Minnesota 6-11
Iowa 6-11
Michigan State 4-12
Indiana 4-13

If the Illini/Nittany Lions' score holds, Illinois will have third place all to themselves. If PSU mounts a comeback, both teams will be tied for fourth. (Technically, if PSU comes back, they would hold the tiebreaker over Illinois, so they would be fourth, but let's not be quite so technical just yet.)

Try and get out to the ballpark near you this weekend. Your school and college baseball would love your support.