March 17, 2014
SAN DIEGO, Calif. - Brad Haynal's two-out single in the bottom of the 10th inning brought home the winning run as San Diego State completed a four-game sweep of Purdue with a 6-5 victory over the Boilermakers Monday night at Tony Gwynn Stadium.
The win was the seventh straight for the Aztecs, who improved to 16-4 and matched their best start to a season since the1997 campaign.
SDSU opened the contest with three runs in the bottom of the first thanks to a sacrifice fly from Seby Zavala and RBI singles by Spencer Thornton and Haynal.
Purdue (1-14) put single runs on the board in both the third and fourth innings, but each time the Aztecs had an answer as they scored once themselves in the bottom of each of those frames. In the third, an RBI single by Adkison scored Zavala from third while in the fourth Evan Potter's sacrifice fly plated Haynal, who had doubled to lead off the inning.
The Boilermakers closed to within 5-3 with a marker in their half of the sixth and then added a pair of runs in the top of the eighth to knot the contest at 5-5. The tying run came against closer Michael Cederoth on a wild pitch as the Aztec junior suffered his first blown save opportunity in eight attempts since assuming the role early in the season.
Purdue reliever Mike Lutz held the Aztecs off the board after coming on with two on and nobody out in the bottom of the sixth. He kept the Aztecs at bay over the seventh through ninth innings as they entered the bottom of the 10th having not recorded a hit since a leadoff single in the sixth.
Lutz retired the first two batters in the 10th and was working on a string of nine straight outs before Thornton drew a walk. Adkison followed up with a single to left to set the stage for Haynal's heroics. The junior catcher drilled a single to left that enabled Thornton scoring the winning run. That made a winner of Cederoth, who improved to 2-1 on the season. The loss went to Lutz as he dropped to 0-3.
Haynal ended the night with three hits including a double, two RBI and a run scored. Thornton and Adkison tallied two hits and an RBI each as well.
San Diego State will now return to Mountain West action as it visits Las Vegas this weekend for a three-game series against league-leading UNLV. The opening contest of that set is slated for Friday, Mar. 21, at 6:00 p.m.at Earl E. Wilson Stadium.