Wilkins’ Walk-off Home Run Lifts Ohio State over Indiana in 10th – Ohio State Buckeyes
5/23/2002 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
May 23, 2002
Box Score
MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. – A walk-off home run by Joe Wilkins (Sr., Grove City, Ohio/Dublin Scioto) in the bottom of the 10th inning gave Ohio State an 11-10 victory over Indiana in the second-seeded Buckeyes’ opening game of the Big Ten Tournament Thursday at Minnesota’s Siebert Field.
With two outs in the bottom of the 10th, Wilkins took a 1-2 offering from Indiana reliever Ryan Smith and launched it to left-centerfield. The ball hit a tree and bounced back onto the field. There was some doubt as to whether it was a home run, but that was cleared up after the second base pointed over his head to signal a home run. Wilkins had struck out on three pitches against Smith in the ninth inning.
“He started off with two sliders and I look bad on the last one,” Wilkins said of his at bat in the ninth. “I took the first pitch in my last at bat and was expecting a slider and that is what he game me.”
Doug Dendinger (Sr., Greenwich, Ohio/South Central) had tied the game 10-10 in the ninth inning on a two-run, two out double. Nick Swisher (Jr., Parkersburg, W.Va./Parkersburg) was hit by a pitch to lead off the inning and then after Wilkins’ strikeout, Drew Anderson (Fr., Brownsburg, Ind./Brownsburg). walked to put runners at first and second. Dendinger turned on a fastball and sent it to the wall in right-centerfield.
“I was thinking there was no way this guy would beat us,” Dendinger said of thinking going into the at bat. “I was looking for a fastball. I was ready. They had (centerfielder Kennard) Jones way over in left-center, so I thought the ball would go to the wall. I knew Drew would have a great chance to score.” Jones, Indiana’s Big Ten Tri-Player of the Year, tied the game with a two-run home run in the seventh inning and then the Hoosiers added four more runs to post a six-spot and take a 9-5 lead.
Two base hits after the two-run shot by Jones prompted a pitching change for the Buckeyes. Brandon Steen (Sr., Hendersonville, Tenn./Hendersonville) replaced starter Josh Newman (So., Wheelersburg, Ohio/Wheelersburg), who lasted 6 1/3 innings allowing seven runs, six earned, on 12 hits. He walked two and struck out two. Steen lasted only two batters in the seventh giving up a hit before a sac fly gave the Hoosiers the lead. That brought on Chris Hanners (Fr., Groveport, Ohio/Desales), who pitched an inning before getting lifted in favor of Matt Davis (Fr., Mason, Ohio/William Mason). Davis pitched the final 2 1/3 innings for the Buckeyes giving up just one hit against eight batters.
Ohio State, which improved to 34-18-1 with the win, got three of the runs back in the bottom of the seventh to pull within a run, 9-8, thanks to an RBI-triple by Wilkins, an RBI-double by Dendinger and a pair of Indiana errors. The Hoosiers got one run right back on a home run to left-centerfield by Eric Blakeley to take a 10-8 lead.
Dendinger finished 3-for-5 for the Buckeyes with three RBI. Wilkins also finished 3-for-5, scored three runs with a pair of RBI. Ohio State had four home runs in the game as Swisher, Anderson and Terry Pettorini (So., Wooster, Ohio/Wooster) joined Wilkins in going yard.
Indiana posted the first runs in the game on a wind-aided home run by leftfielder Ryan Donley in the top of the second. Vasili Spanos led off the inning with a double to right-centerfield that he tried to stretch into a triple, but he was caught on a great relay throw from Mike Rabin (Fr., West Chester, Ohio/Lakota East) to Christian Snavely (So., Defiance, Ohio/Defiance) to Anderson.
Ohio State tied it up in the bottom of the inning on a blast by Rabin that left the park just to the left of the batter’s eye in centerfield.
The fourth-seeded Hoosiers, which fell to 35-18 with the defeat, took command 3-1 in the third capitalizing on a balk by Newman to take a one-run lead. Kennard Jones scored on a sacrifice fly by Spanos to give Indiana the two-run lead.
Swisher tied the game with his ninth home run of the season and the 34th of his career, which moved him into a three-way tie for fifth place on the school’s career list. The shot off the batter’s eye in straight-away centerfield also scored Doug Deeds (So., Bexley, Ohio/Bexley), who reached on a two-out single off first baseman Gibran Hamden’s glove. Anderson gave the Buckeyes a 4-3 lead with a single through the left side that score Wilkins, who had a base hit to follow Swisher’s home run.
Pettorini hit the Buckeyes’ third home run of the game to give Ohio State a 5-3 lead in the fourth inning. The long ball was his fifth of the season and cleared the leftfield fence.
Davis got the win for Ohio State to improve to 5-0 on the year, while Smith got the loss for Indiana, falling to 3-2.
Ohio State will play the winner of Thursday night’s matchup between top-seeded Minnesota and sixth-seeded Northwestern at 8:05 p.m. (EDT, 7:05 p.m., CDT) Friday. The winner of that game will advance to the championship game of the Big Ten Tournament Saturday at 8 p.m. All postseason games can be heard on WOSU Radio (820 AM) or live at ohiostatebuckeyes.com.
