Lafayette Times

Boilermakers Mash 5 HR, Win Series vs Holy Cross

Jake Jarvis led the way with six RBI and 10 total bases as Purdue baseball mashed five home runs for the first time since 2010, slugging its ways to a season-opening series win with a 12-2 victory vs. Holy Cross Sunday at Constellation Field.

Jonathan Blackwell needed just 71 pitches to complete five innings of one-run ball in his Boilermaker debut. Purdue got very efficient outings from its starting pitchers in victories on Friday and Sunday in the series.

The Boilermakers scored four times with two outs in the third inning to take control of the game. Couper Cornblum extended the inning with a two-out RBI single. The outfielder later ended the game with a two-run homer in the eighth inning that brought the 10-run rule into play.

Mike Bolton Jr. and Cam Thompson joined Jarvis and Cornblum as Boilermakers to go deep Sunday. Purdue hit 11 home runs in the series, with eight different players connecting for at least one long ball.

SUNDAY NOTABLES

• Paul Toetz and Jake Jarvis both had a two-home run game and a six-game RBI game in the series. Prior to Saturday, a Boilermaker had record half a dozen RBI in a game since 2016. Jarvis now has a five-RBI game and a six-RBI game as a Boilermaker.

• Two different Boilermakers had a multi-homer game in the series since Kyle Johnson and Kyle Wood did it at East Tennessee State in March 2016. Johnson's multi-homer game seven years ago also marked the last time a Boilermaker had 10 total bases before Jarvis did it Sunday.

• The Boilermakers hit five home runs in game for the first time in the BBCOR bat era (since 2011). They hit five homers in games vs. Missouri and Penn State in 2010. The Purdue single-game record is six from an April 2006 win at Indiana.

The Boilermakers pounded out 23 extra-base hits and posted a .669 team slugging percentage in the series.

• Purdue homered in all four games in Sugar Land for the second year in a row. This time the Boilermakers hit multiple home runs in three of the four games.

• Purdue scored four times in an inning three times in the series.

• Evan Albrecht and Jake Parr hit safely in all four games of the series. Mike Bolton Jr., Jarvis and Toetz reached base safely in all four games. Jarvis reached base in 11 of his 16 plates appearances (.688 OBP) for the series.

• The Boilermakers won their season-opening series for the fourth time in the last six years dating back to 2018.

Along with a three-hit day at the plate to end a 1-for-11 skid over the first three games, Thompson was also involved in two of the top defensive plays of the day as Purdue's first baseman. He accounted for the game's first out when he made a leaping catch at the netting in foul territory up the first baseline. With two men aboard and Purdue leading 5-1 in the top of the fifth, Thompson made a diving stop in the hole and hit Blackwell in stride covering first for the final out of the frame.

Jarvis opened the scoring with a home run in the second inning, connected for a two-out, two-run double the following frame and hit a long three-run homer into the Purdue bullpen past the right field wall in bottom of the seventh.

Original source can be found here.