Purdue baseball fell short of the biggest upset of the Big Ten Tournament, and now waits to see if it proved itself worthy of an NCAA Regional berth.
No. 1 UCLA rallied for a 4-3 victory over the Boilermakers in the tourney quarterfinals in Omaha, Nebraska. Purdue came within four outs of beating a No. 1-ranked team for the first time in 25 years.
Instead, the Boilermakers’ 37 victories will go before the NCAA Tournament selection committee. The field of 64 teams will be announced Monday. Purdue seeks its first berth since 2018.
Mulivai Levu’s bases-loaded sacrifice fly with one out in the ninth snapped a 3-3 tie. Purdue led 3-1 entering the bottom of the ninth before the Bruins rallied to tie it. It then committed a pair of errors to start the bottom of the ninth and swing the game in UCLA’s favor.
Prior to that finish, the Boilermakers summoned several clutch performances. Thomas Howard started on what was supposed to be a bullpen day. Instead, he shut UCLA out for five innings and pitched into the sixth.
The Bruins scored in the sixth to cut the Purdue lead to 2-1. In the top of the seventh, Brandon Rogers homered to take back that insurance run.
Purdue closer Jake Kramer relieved Howard in the sixth, and the Bruins finally broke through against him in the eighth. Roman Martin tripled home a run and scored on Payton Brennan’s two-out, two-strike single.
UCLA was the preseason No. 1 team and has held that ranking all season. Purdue nearly capitalized on its lone game against the Bruins.
It has been a topsy turvy couple of weeks for Purdue’s postseason hopes. It went into the regular season finale series against Iowa in good shape to secure a top-four seed in the Big Ten tournament. Then it allowed 39 runs while getting swept in Des Moines.
It settled for the 5 seed in the tourney and opened against Michigan State — a team which only made the field when Minnesota also lost all three games the final week. The Spartans scored four in the first and three in the second and put the Boilermakers on the verge of elimination.
Purdue bounced back to beat Illinois — with Howard winning in relief — and then avenged the loss to Iowa to advance out of the double-elimination bracket. An upset of the No. 1 team in the RPI rankings would have gone a long way to putting the Boilers on the positive side of the bubble.
“I like their team — I hope they get a chance to play next weekend,” UCL:A coach John Savage said of Purdue on Big Ten Network.
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This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Purdue baseball back on NCAA Regional bubble as upset of No. 1 UCLA slips away
Reporting by Nathan Baird, Indianapolis Star / Indianapolis Star
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
