| Joe Blackburn had two hits in Sunday's rubber game against Iowa. |
- Box Score
IOWA CITY, Iowa; April 8, 2007 ?C Iowa took advantage of two Penn State errors in both innings that the Hawkeyes scored their runs in and the Hawkeye pitching staff limited the damage caused by Penn State in the two innings in which the Nittany Lions scored, all of which added up to a 6-2 Iowa win over Penn State in the rubber game of the weather-shortened three-game series on Sunday.
Sunday??s game was a seven-inning contest due to the rule that all Big Ten series must be played in the sequence of a 9-7-7-9 inning format. Yesterday??s scheduled doubleheader was shortened to just one game due to the frigid temperatures and with Penn State??s travel schedule, only one game could be played on Sunday, which had to be seven-inning game. This weekend marks the second straight weekend that the Nittany Lions have had a weekend Big Ten series shortened due to the weather.
Scott Gaffney (Westbury, N.Y.) had his shortest weekend outing of the year as a starter, pitching just three innings and allowing six runs, only three of which were earned. He struck out one, walked two, and allowed five hits.
Penn State had at least one baserunner in six out of seven innings but was only able to push across two runs in the contest as the Nittany Lions stranded nine runners in the game.
Iowa struck first in the bottom of the second as they got a pair of hits, successfully executed a sacrifice bunt, and also benefited from a Penn State error. Caleb Curry led off with a single to left and was sacrificed to second by Wes Freie. Curry then scored on a double to deep left center by Brian Burmester, which was bobbled by Garrett Field (Stillwater, Okla.), allowing Burmester to go to third. He later scored on a groundout to make it 2-0.
The Nittany Lions cut the lead in half in the top of the third as they took advantage of a hit batsman and a walk and got a two-out RBI single by Joe Blackburn (Sinking Spring, Pa.) to drive in Matt Cavagnaro (Brightwaters, N.Y.), who had been plunked with one out. Penn State almost took the lead but Rob Yodice??s (Staten Island, N.Y.) deep fly ball to right field was caught by Kyle Riffel with his back on the right field fence.
The Hawkeyes took a 6-1 lead with four runs in the bottom of the third, taking advantage of another Penn State error to score two more unearned runs in addition to two earned runs in the inning. With the bases loaded after a double, a pair of walks and a sacrifice bunt, Curry hit a grounder to Mike Deese (Roswell, Ga.) at third, who elected to throw to second to try to start an inning-ending double play, but his throw was wide and went into right field, allowing two runs to score and putting runners at first and third. A single by Freie scored another run and the fourth run scored on a sacrifice fly.
Penn State knocked out Iowa starter Steve Turnbull in the top of the fourth but was only able to score one run after loaded the bases with just one out. Both Deese and Rick Marlin (Orlando, Fla.) worked back-to-back walks to start the inning and one out later, Field blooped a single into center field to load the bases. Reliever Scott Brune came in and got both Cavagnaro and Gaffney to fly out to center field to end the inning, although Cavagnaro??s was a sac fly, allowing Deese to score.
The Nittany Lions will come back home briefly this week but for long enough to host Temple in a 6:35 p.m. game at Medlar Field at Lubrano Park. After that, they will be on the road next weekend once again with a Big Ten series at Michigan State before hosting a scheduled six-game homestand beginning a week from Wednesday.
Notes: Cavagnaro reached base for the 14th straight game with a first inning single??.For just the second time this year, Gaffney also hit while being the starting pitcher. He also stayed in the game as the DH after coming out as the pitcher.