| Garrett Field went 2-for-4 with an RBI in game one against Michigan. |
- Game 1 Box Score
- Game 2 Box Score
ANN ARBOR, Mich.; May 12, 2007 - Michigan, which entered the weekend leading the Big Ten in home runs, used a pair of long balls to take a four-run lead early in the game, then the lead see-sawed from three to four runs in the middle innings before the Wolverines extended the lead in the late innings to defeat Penn State 11-5 in the series opener on Saturday afternoon despite being outhit by only two. The game was the first of a doubleheader on Saturday.
The Nittany Lions got more hits (8) off Michigan starter Zach Putnam than the Wolverines got off Penn State starter Seth Whitehill (7) (Bellefonte, Pa.), but four of those hits off Whitehill were extra base hits, including the two round-trippers. Whitehill equaled his season high in strikeouts by fanning seven, including staring the game by mowing down Michigan hitters one at a time as he struck out the first five Wolverine hitters and six of the first seven.
After working 1-2-3 innings in the first and second, he was staked to a 1-0 lead in the third as Penn State took advantage of a rare Michigan error to push across an unearned run. With one out, Garrett Field (Stillwater, Okla.) dumped a one-out single into short right field just in front of a diving Doug Pickens. He then broke for second as Matt Cavagnaro (Brightwaters, N.Y.) drove a 2-0 pitch into right center to send Field to third and Field scored when Pickens couldn??t come up with the ball cleanly in right field.
After Whitehill got the first two outs of the third inning, however, the Wolverines struck right back as Kevin Cislo singled to left with two outs and leadoff hitter Jason Christian then deposited an 0-1 pitch just over the wall in right field for a two-run homer.
Another long ball gave the Wolverines a 5-1 lead in the fourth, this one off the bat of Adam Abraham, a three-run shot to left center with none out.
Penn State got one run back in the top of the fifth as Brian Ernst and Field led off with back-to-back bunt singles. They were sacrificed to second by Cavagnaro and Brian Ernst (Boyertown, Pa.) scored on Scott Gaffney??s (Westbury, N.Y.) groundout.
The Wolverines put it back to a four-run lead in the bottom of the fifth, manufacturing a run with a leadoff walk and then a single before three fly outs.
The Nittany Lions manufactured one of their own to cut the lead back to 6-3 in the sixth, getting a leadoff single from Joe Blackburn (Sinking Spring, Pa.), a one-out single from Mike Deese (Roswell, Ga.) to send him to third, and then a two-out RBI single by Ernst.
With Whitehill nearing 100 pitches entering the seventh, Michigan took advantage and pushed across two more. Christian led off with a double, was sacrificed to third and then scored on a triple by Nate Recknagel, who later scored on a wild pitch thrown by reliever Gary Amato (Cocoa Beach, Fla.), who relieved Whitehill after Rechnagel??s triple. Reliever Matt Ogrodnik (Saltsburg, Pa.) came on and got the second out of the inning before giving up a pair of seeing-eye singles, the second of which went into right field. Rick Marlin (Orlando, Fla.) charged it and threw a strike home to Blackburn to nail Putnam at the plate for the third out of the inning.
Michigan tacked on three more unearned runs in the eighth, taking advantage of two Penn State errors to score off Ogrodnik. Penn State scored two in the top of the ninth to account for the final score as Marlin led off with a single and Ernst doubled and both scored on groundouts.
Game two of the doubleheader will begin at about 5:15 p.m.
Notes: Gaffney was thrown out attempting to steal for the first time this year in the top of the first. He had been 12-for-12 entering the game..The home runs given up by Whitehill were the first he has yielded since the game at Kansas on March 13, spanning his last seven starts...Marlin??s assist in the seventh inning was his sixth of the year, tops among all Penn State outfielders... Ogrodnik??s appearance was his 23rd of the year, and he needs just six more to break his own school record of 28 that he set last year.