Penn State baseball knocks off Michigan to advance to Big Ten Tournament final
Penn State baseball met Michigan for a second time in the Big Ten Tournament on Saturday afternoon with a trip to the final on the line. The No. 8-seed Nittany Lions hadn’t yet fallen coming into the matchup with the Wolverines, leaving open an avenue to keep playing baseball, win or lose.
They wouldn’t need it.
Grinding past a late two-run deficit, the Nittany Lions earned a 7-6 win in extra innings to advance to the Big Ten title game. It’s the first time Penn State has reached the conference final in 24 years.
How it happened
Penn State baseball and Michigan followed a parallel storyline to their first meeting on Thursday. The Nittany Lions jumped out to a 3-0 lead with a big fourth inning. The Wolverines responded with three runs of their own in the sixth. And, in the bottom of the seventh, Penn State found itself again facing a two-run deficit going into the game’s final innings.
Summoning runs in the clutch, though, the Nittany Lions wouldn’t relent. Though it would come with some controversial decisions and plays, Penn State climbed back with a two-run top of the eighth to tie the game.
And, it started with Joe Jaconski. Leading off the inning with a solo shot to right field, the Nittany Lions were back within striking distance of the Wolverines.
Not done, J.T. Marr and Adam Cecere each singled to put two runners aboard without an out. In a move drawing criticism, though, Penn State baseball manager Mike Gambino yanked four-hitter Bobby Marsh, a lefty, in favor of Derek Cease. Drawing a 1-2 count, though, Cease was called out for a pitch clock violation, not ready with eight seconds to go.
The next batters, though, had answers anyway. Grant Norris loaded the bases with a bloop single over the shortstop and Bryce Molinaro, following his Thursday grandslam heroics, evened the game with a single to right. The hit scored Marr, but Cecere was thrown out at home.
Winning time
Stuck at 5-5, the two teams scraped through the bottom of the eighth and ninth innings without drawing blood. But, in the top of the 10th, Cecere again struck.
Turning on a high and inside pitch at the chest, the right fielder blasted a two-run shot over the bullpen in right field. His second home run of the Big Ten Tournament, the dinger gave the Nittany Lions a 7-5 lead.
“Every time I go to the plate, I envision hitting the ball pretty hard,” said Cecere. “They were giving us fits throughout the whole game. But (Barr) was coming up and in all game. I’m a big boy. I get that barrel to it and then good things happen. I choked up a little bit, heard my mom hit me with a here we go. And that was that.”
They wouldn’t relinquish it, though Michigan made a push. Reliever Ben DeMell sat down the first two Wolverine batters. But, behind in the count, Michigan’s Mitch Voit blasted a homer over the wall in left-center to make it a 7-6 game.
Fighting back tears in his postgame interview, Cecere set the table for a final against the winner of tonight’s Indiana/Nebraska matchup on Sunday, a berth in the NCAA Tournament on the line.
“I’m gonna be honest with you. It gets to push come to shove. I said after the first game, when we need it, we seem to get it. So let’s see what we can do. It’s been like that ever since. I love baseball. I love this game. And I don’t know what I would do without it,” said Cecere. “So when I stare at the end of my career, when I come out and potentially play a game that could end my career, you got to post up. You can’t let it happen. And it’s really that simple.
“I walked off the field last year, not feeling the way I wanted to feel. And I gotta go get it tomorrow. So let’s do that.”
Penn State baseball will play in the single-elimination Big Ten Tournament championship game on Sunday at 3 p.m.
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