The Minnesota baseball team (39-18) defeated Ohio State (38-19) 5-4 in Game Eight of the Big Ten Tournament on Saturday, May 24 at Siebert Field. With the win Minnesota moved to the winners bracket at 2-0 in the tournament and will play the winner of tonight's Ohio State/Penn State game in the Big Ten Championship game on Sunday, May 25.
Senior righthander C.J. Woodrow (Plymouth, Minn.) pitched seven and two third innings, gave up eight hits, four runs and struck out six. Woodrow picked up the win to move to 8-3 on the season. With the win he is now 3-0 against Ohio State in his last three outings against the Buckeyes.
Minnesota jumped out to an early 1-0 lead over Ohio State in the first inning. Sam Steidl (Alexandria, Minn.) and Ben Pattee (Ukiah, Calif.) started the game with back-to-back singles. Stiedl stole third and came around to score on a sacrifice fly bye Jake Elder (Delta, British Columbia).
Ohio State tied the game at 1-1 in the top of the second on an RBI groundout by Derek Kinnear. The Golden Gophers came right back with a big inning in the bottom of the second, scoring three runs to go up 4-1. David Hrncirik (Madison, Wis.) led off the inning with a double down the leftfield line. Jon Becker (Plato, Minn.) followed with a walk, and both runners moved to second and third on a David Roach (Clearwater, Fla.) sacrifice bunt. Tony Leseman (St. Paul, Minn.) doubled to leftfield to put Minnesota up 3-1. Two batters later Leseman came home to score on a Pattee double to make the score 4-1.
Elder tacked on, what would prove to be an important run, on a solo home run to make it 5-1. Ohio State trimmed the lead to 5-2 on a Mike Rabin RBI single.
The Buckeyes continue to close in when Brett Garrard hit a solo home run to make it 5-3. Woodrow continued to pitch into the eighth inning. The first two outs were made on great defensive plays by senior second baseman Luke Appert (Cottage Grove, Minn.) and Hrncirik, the sophomore third baseman. However, Paul Farinacci homered to right field to cut the Buckeye deficit one run at 5-4.
Brian Bull (Omaha, Neb.) came in to get the final out of the inning. In the ninth inning Kinnear singled to lead off the inning against Bull. Bull retired the next two batters. Jeff Moen (Glenwood, Minn.) came in to pitch with two outs in the ninth and hit Kinnear to make it first and second. However, he retired Mike Rabin to record the save.
The save was Moen's ninth of the season setting a new single season school record for Minnesota. Doug Kampsen (1984) held the previous record at eight. Ohio State starter Chris Hanners gave up five runs in two innings to take the loss and fall to 4-4 on the season.
Offensively Minnesota was led by Elder who was two-for-three with a home run and two RBI. The homer was Elder's first since opening day against Arizona on Feb. 21. Leseman was one-for-three with two RBI, while Pattee was two-for-four with one RBI.
The Golden Gophers are 12-3 this season in one run games. Minnesota's victory today also put them one win away from 40 for the season. One more win would give the Golden Gophers their first 40-win since 1999. it would also give Minnesota head coach John Anderson his 800th career victory.
Minnesota will play the winner of the Penn State/Ohio State game on Sunday, May 25 at 12:05 p.m. There would also be another game scheduled for 3:35 p.m. if necessary.