Lafayette Times

Boilermakers Rack Up 15 Ks but Rally Comes Up Short

Three different pitchers registered five strikeouts as the team racked up a season-high 15 Ks, but Purdue baseball's ninth-inning rally was squashed before the tying run could reach base in a 7-5 defeat at the hands of NJIT on Sunday at Ting Stadium.

The Highlanders (4-3) led wire-to-wire for the second time in the series after scoring three times over the first two innings. The Boilermakers (5-3) made it a one-run game on Mike Bolton Jr.'s two-out RBI single in the bottom of the fifth, but NJIT's two home runs in the eighth inning proved to be the difference. The teams split the four-game series.

Doubles from Jake Jarvis and Cam Thompson in the ninth inning helped bring the tying run to the plate after RBI from Jo Stevens and Camden Melvin. But Evan Albrecht was called out on strikes on a full-count offering to end the game.

Thompson homered off the videoboard in left field in the second inning. But it was Purdue's only long ball of the series after hitting 11 last weekend vs. Holy Cross in Texas. With seven home runs and 15 extra-base hits in the series, NJIT enjoyed a .504 to .344 edge in slugging percentage.

Kyle Iwinski struck out five over four innings of two-hit relief, retiring 11 of the 14 batters he faced while also accounting for Purdue's fifth pickoff of the series. Calvin Schapira had five Ks vs 15 batters faced and Carter Doorn struck out five of 10, becoming the latest Boilermaker with a minimum five Ks while striking out at least half the batters he faced.

The Boilermakers have registered at least 15 strikeouts in a game four times over the last year and also done it seven times since their March 2019 series with NJIT in Marion, North Carolina.

Couper Cornblum barreled up for an RBI double to the wall in left center in his first at-bat, finishing the series 8-for-17. He and Stevens (5-for-13) hit safely in all four games of the weekend. Albrecht now has an 11-game on-base streak dating back to the end of last season after he doubled and scored in the fifth inning Sunday.

Iwinski retired the dangerous first two hitters in the Highlanders' lineup twice each and also enjoyed a 1-2-3 frame vs. NJIT's 3-4-5 hitters in the fifth inning. Jarvis and Cornblum both made nice running catches as the corner outfielders to take away singles in the top of the seventh.

Even with a rough eighth inning Sunday, the Purdue bullpen performed well over the four games. The relief corps had a 2.57 ERA and .215 batting average against with 24 strikeouts vs. eight walks in 21 innings.

The Boilermakers struggled against NJIT's lefties for much of the weekend, finishing the four games 4-for-37 against a trio of southpaws. Grant Vurpillat worked three innings of one-hit relief Sunday, striking out the 3-4-5 portion of the lineup in order in the sixth inning and registering another 1-2-3 frame vs. the top of the order in the bottom of the eighth.

Purdue returns to Ting Stadium in Holly Springs next weekend for a four-game series against Akron. Friday's series opener is set for a 3 p.m. ET first pitch.

Original source can be found here.