Ohio State Moves to Big Ten Final with 5-2 Victory over Wildcats – Ohio State Buckeyes
5/24/2002 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
May 24, 2002
Box Score
MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. – Ohio State starter E.J. Laratta (Sr., Englewood, Colo./Cherry Creek) pitched his fifth complete game of his career and the 14th of his career in leading the Buckeyes to a 5-2 victory over Northwestern Friday night to advance to the Big Ten Tournament championship game Saturday.
The Buckeyes, which improved to 35-18-1 with the victory, will face the winner of the Northwestern/Minnesota game Saturday at 8:05 p.m. Saturday night. Either Northwestern or Minnesota would have to beat Ohio State twice to win the tournament championship, though the Buckeyes only need one win to claim its fifth tournament title and its first since 1997.
Laratta went all nine innings and gave up the two Northwestern runs on nine hits. He struck out three Wildcats and walked one on 112 pitches in improving to 8-4 on the year. James Happ pitched 6 2/3 innings for the Wildcats in getting the loss to drop to 3-2. All five Buckeyes runs were his responsibility courtesy of 13 hits.
Ohio State led 2-1 going into the sixth inning, but back-to-back home runs by Doug Dendinger (Sr., Greenwich, Ohio/South Central) and Terry Pettorini (So., Wooster, Ohio/Wooster) extended the lead to 5-1 and all but sealed the game.
The Buckeyes jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the top of the first inning. Christian Snavely (So., Defiance, Ohio/Defiance) drew a lead off walk and Mike Rabin (Fr., West Chester, Ohio/Lakota East) singled to right field. A walk by Doug Deeds (So., Bexley, Ohio/Bexley) loaded the bases. Snavely scored on a ground ball by Nick Swisher that the Wildcats could not turn for a double play, only getting Deeds out at second. A sacrifice fly by Joe Wilkins (Sr., Grove City, Ohio/Dublin Scioto) brought home Rabin to put the Buckeyes up by two.
Northwestern catcher Ken Padgett homered to left in the bottom of the second inning to pull the Wildcats within a 2-1 score.
Neither team scored again until the sixth inning, when back-to-back home runs by the Buckeyes gave them a 5-1 lead. Dendinger, who tied Thursday’s game against Indiana that Ohio State won 11-10 in 10 innings, hit a shot bover the fence in left-centerfield was his fifth of the season and put the Buckeyes up 4-1. On the very next pitch, Pettorini hit his second home run of the Big Ten Tournament in the next at bat to put Ohio State up by four. He had a solo shot in Thursday’s win.
In the bottom half of the inning, Northwestern got one of the runs back on a sacrifice fly by Padgett that scored first baseman Travis Tharp, who was hit by Laratta.
All nine Buckeye starters had at least one hit in accounting for the 14 hits. Rabin, Deeds, Wilkins, Drew Anderson (Fr., Brownsburg, Ind./Brownsburg) and Pettorini each had a pair of hits, but only Dendinger had multiple RBI.
