Michigan State University
5-6
Clemson
12-0
MSU Clipped By No. 21 Clemson, 4-2, Wednesday In Greenville Opener
3/9/2022 10:49:00 PM | Baseball
Spartans battle Tigers tough, before late rallies come up short.
MSU slid to 5-6 on the young season with the loss, while Clemson improved to 12-0. With Wednesday's result, the Spartan-Tiger all-time series is level at 10-10-1.
Spartan sophomore starting pitcher Harrison Cook was dealing in his second start in the Green & White, going 6.0 IP with nine strikeouts.
"I was very pleased with the starting pitching performance out of Harrison Cook tonight, I thought he threw really, really well," MSU head coach Jake Boss Jr. said. "But I'm disappointed in how we went about our business defensively. We allowed two unearned runs, we hit couple guys, walked a couple guys, and then they scored two runs in the eighth inning without the ball leaving the infield so that's a little disappointing. I feel like if we had played clean baseball, we'd have won tonight and so there's a lot of positives we could away from tonight's game. Clemson is an outstanding ballclub and we were one swing away and as disappointing as it is to get beat tonight, there's certainly a lot of things that we can learn from it and take into practice tomorrow, and then sharpen those things up for a good weekend coming up."
Clemson scored a run in the top of the third, capitalizing on a one-out walk with back-to-back singles to take a 1-0 lead.
Michigan State ended the night with six hits, to Clemson's five, and both teams had three errors on the night. All six Spartan hits came from the fifth inning on, as Clemson starter Billy Barlow stymied the Spartan bats in the early onset, before they got going. Sophomore outfielder Jack Frank broke up the no-hitter with a line-drive single to right with two outs in the fifth, sparking a Spartan rally. After Frank moved to second on a failed pick-off attempt by Barlow, redshirt-freshman catcher Bryan Broecker followed with an RBI single to center to tie the ballgame at 1-1.
After some stretching and singing about the ol' ballgame, the Spartans appeared to have taken a 2-1 lead on a blast off the bat of sophomore infielder Brock Vradenburg, as his deep shot bounced off the top of the wall and to the ground in front of the wall. After originally signaling a home run, the umpires met and ruled it a double where Vradenburg had stopped. MSU went down in order from there, leaving the score knotted at a run apiece.
Clemson scored two runs in the top of the eighth, taking advantage of two MSU miscues in the inning without a hit to take a 3-1 advantage.
In the home half of the eighth, the Spartans threatened with redshirt-junior Peter Ahn leading off with a walk, and sophomore infielder Mitch Jebb later singled and fellow sophomore infielder Trent Farquhar followed with walk to load the bases full of Spartans. However, the rally came to an end without a run, leaving the score, 3-1.
The Tigers tacked on a run in the top of the ninth to open a 4-1 lead, but the Spartans did not go quietly into the Greenville night. Junior outfielder Zaid Walker sparked the rally with a leadoff single and moved up on a Frank walk. Two batters later, Ahn singled up the middle to score Walker, but a strikeout and popup ended the rally and the game.
Frank finished 1-for-3 with a run and a walk, while Broecker was 1-for-4 with an RBI. Ahn and Vradenburg were also 1-for-3, with Ahn knocking in a run. Jebb and Walker both went 1-for-4, with Walker scoring a run.
MSU remains at Fluor Field for the rest of the week as part of the Spartans' second leg of their Spring Break trip, hosting the 2022 First Pitch Invitational, Friday-Sunday, March 11-13, playing Kansas for the second-straight weekend, along with Cincinnati and Western Carolina.
The Spartans will tangle with the Bearcats of Cincinnati on Friday, March 11 in a 2 p.m. first pitch, followed by taking on Western Carolina on Saturday, March 12, also in a 2 p.m. start time, before wrapping up the weekend on Sunday, March 13 against Kansas in a 1 p.m. first pitch.
Team Stats
Pitching:
W: Jackson Lindley (3-0)
L: Dunning, Kyle (1-2)
S: Jay Dill (1)
Batting:
2B: Cooper Ingle 1 ; Max Wagner 1
RBI: Caden Grice 1 ; Max Wagner 1
SH: Dylan Brewer 1
Base Running:
RUNS: Dylan Brewer 1 ; Tyler Corbitt 1 ; Caden Grice 1 ; Benjamin Blackwell 1
HBP: Caden Grice 1 ; Max Wagner 2
Batting:
2B: Vradenburg, Brock 1
RBI: Broecker, Bryan 1 ; Ahn, Peter 1
Base Running:
RUNS: Walker, Zaid 1 ; Frank, Jack 1
CS: Frank, Jack 1
