| Rick Marlin, who also had the game-winning single in Friday night's game, knocked in the go-ahead runs with an eighth-inning double on Sunday to lead the Nittany Lions to a 6-4 win and a sweep of Northwestern. |
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UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. ?C Rick Marlin (Orlando, Fla.) knocked in the go-ahead runs with a two-run double in the bottom of the eighth, breaking a 4-4 tie and Cory Wine (Stillwater, Okla.) hit his third home run of the season, a three-run shot over the right field wall, to lead Penn State to a 6-4 win over Northwestern on Sunday and complete its first Big Ten series sweep since the 2004 season. Penn State improves to 9-5 in the Big Ten with the win and inched closer to the .500 mark overall with a 16-19 mark.
Drew O??Neil (Roswell, Ga.) picked up his second win of the year by throwing two perfect innings, the eighth and ninth to improve to 2-1 on the year. He struck out one in his two innings of work. Wine went 2-for-4 with three RBI and two runs scored, as he also scored the tying run in the three-run eighth inning after tripling. Joe Blackburn (Sinking Spring, Pa.) went 3-for-4 and drove in Wine with the tying run in the eighth before scoring the go-ahead run on Marlin??s double.
Penn State twice battled back from deficits to tie and later take the lead. After the first two innings were scoreless on both sides, the Wildcats broke the ice with two runs in the top of the third as Antonio Mule drove in both runs with a two-out, two-run single off Penn State starter Scott Gaffney (Westbury, N.Y.). Mule??s single followed three other singles and two strikeouts by Gaffney before the junior righthander struck out the final hitter of the inning to strike out the side. Gaffney would leave after just three innings after allowing five hits, two runs and striking out four and not walking any.
In the bottom of the third, Penn State took the lead on Wine??s two-out, three-run blast over the 375 sign in right center field. His round-tripper came after Louie Picconi (North Merrick, N.Y.) and Matt Cavagnaro (Brightwaters, N.Y.) had both singled. Wine is now tied for the team lead in home runs with Rob Yodice (Staten Island, N.Y.).
With reliever Gary Amato (Cocoa Beach, Fla.) on to begin the fourth, Northwestern tied the game 3-3 as Caleb Fields doubled to lead off, went to third on a sacrifice bunt and scored on another sac bunt. Amato gave up just one more hit after Fields?? double and kept the game tied through the sixth.
In the seventh, Mike Lorentson (Springfield, Pa.) came on for his second appearance of the weekend and after picking off Aaron Newman at first for the second out of the inning, yielded a double to Jake Owens and then issued back-to-back walks to Mule and Jake Goebbert to load the bases. Paul Hawkins (Glen Hope, Pa.) was then summoned from the bullpen for his third appearance of the weekend and he got Fields to ground out to third to end the inning but not before throwing a wild pitch, which allowed Owens to score from third to make it 4-3.
With Wildcat starter Cole Livermore nearing 100 pitches entering the eighth, he gave up a one-out triple to Wine into the gap in left center. With the infield drawn in, Blackburn slapped a single into right field to tie the game. After Yodice flied out, Mike Deese (Roswell, Ga.) grounded a single through the middle to send Blackburn to third. After Deese stole second, Marlin lifted a high and long fly ball to left that both the leftfielder Newman and centerfielder Jim Grieco appeared to lose in the sun and the ball dropped between them for a double, allowing both Blackburn and Deese to score.
O??Neil then set down the side in order in the ninth to finish off the win and Penn State??s first Big Ten sweep since April 30-May 2 of the 2004 season at Illinois. The sweep is also Penn State??s first home sweep of a Big Ten series since May 11-13 of the 2001 season against Michigan State and is Penn State??s first-ever sweep of Northwestern at home or on the road.
The Nittany Lions will now gear up for a Tuesday evening game against Duquesne. First pitch against the Dukes will be at 5:05 p.m. at Medlar Field at Lubrano Park. The game was moved to Tuesday from its previously scheduled day of Wednesday.
Notes: The wins in back-to-back Big Ten series marks the first time since the 2003 season that Penn State has won two straight conference series. The last time it happened was the final two weekends of the 2003 season against Illinois followed by Michigan State. The series at Michigan State that year was a rain-shortened three-game series??.The last time that Penn State won back-to-back, four-game Big Ten series was in 2002 vs. Michigan (April 26-28) and Indiana (May 4-6). The Nittany Lions won three out of four in both of those weekends??.Penn State has now won four straight games for the first time since the 2005 season??.Wine??s eighth-inning triple was his first three-bagger since March 4th of last year vs. Bowling Green, the seventh game of the season??.Hawkins has now thrown 13 straight innings, spanning his last nine appearances, without allowing a walk. His last walk was at Oral Roberts on March 15??.Blackburn has now hit in 10 of his last 11 games and 21 of his last 23??.He has now reached base safely in 11 straight games and 22 of his last 23??.Wine has reached base safely in 31 of his 34 games played??.The Nittany Lions went 9-for-10 in stolen bases in the series??.Penn State made only two errors in the four-game series??.The Nittany Lions are now hitting .272 as a team, raising their team average by three more points over the weekend??.