OMAHA, Neb. – The times the UCLA Bruins have had to play from behind this year have been few, and there may have been no bigger moment where they needed to battle back than the Big Ten tournament quarterfinals.
Coming off a six-day layoff and down 3-1 to the fifth-seeded Purdue Boilermakers, the Bruins tied the game with two runs in the eighth and battled to get the winning run to third base with one out in the ninth, where Mulivai Levu sent a sac fly to right field that got Aidan Espinoza home and UCLA into the semifinals with a 4-3 win.
“We’re very fortunate to win, I think, at the end of the day. But a really good win, good resiliency,” said UCLA head coach John Savage said following the game. “But at the end of the day, for us to go where we want to go, we’ve got to play much, much better.”
Early on, the Boilermakers looked like they could pull off an upset. In the top of the third with one out, Brandon Rogers on second and Avery Moore on first, a single by Sam Flores scored Rogers and advanced Moore to third. With Jackson Bessette at the plate, Flores broke for second and the throw from UCLA’s Cashel Dugger went into the outfield, allowing Moore to scamper home to give Purdue a 2-0 lead.
On the mound, starter Thomas Howard cruised through five innings, allowing a single run on two hits and a walk, striking out four.
“He’s been waiting for this game when we told him yesterday. That’s why we threw him, because he’s been our emotional leader from the pitching staff, and he won the baseball,” said Purdue head coach Greg Goff after the game. “And I just thought he just pitched with so much courage and just attacked those guys, you know, and that’s what it looks like.”
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Asked about how the layoff might have affected his team’s bats, Savage said it was less about the six days between games or the uncertainty of the delayed start than it was finding pitches to hit in hitter’s counts.
“I thought we’ve had a good week of practice, but we were not on time with 1-0 and 2-0 and 2-1 and 3-1 [counts],” Savage said. “And that’s, you’re going to get carved up at this time of the year if you’re not ready to hit in those counts. You’ve got to take advantage. We’ve worked really hard getting in those counts all season. We’ve done a really good job of taking advantage of things. And tonight, I think we did a very good job of that.”
UCLA cut the lead to one in the bottom of the sixth. After Roch Cholowsky reached on a single, Goff pulled Howard and brought on Jake Kramer, who walked Mulivai Levu and moved Cholowsky over to second, then both runners advanced on a wild pitch with Peyton Brennan at the plate. Brennan then hit a fly ball to right that was deep enough to move Cholowsky 90 more feet and make it a 2-1 game.
In the top of the seventh, UCLA put flamethrowing reliever Cal Randall on the mound to face the top of the Purdue lineup, and after Randall fanned Eli Anderson swinging at a changeup, Brandon Rogers launched a fastball over the left field wall to restore a two-run lead for the Boilermakers. The solo shot was the first homer of the tournament.
An inning later, with Mulivai Levu on first after hitting a two-out single, Roman Martin launched the 1-2 offering from Purdue’s Jake Kramer deep to left center field, where it caromed off the top of the wall and back to the outfield grass. Martin raced around to third, and second base umpire Jason Harstick signaled the ball was a home run, and Martin went home. A video review reversed the call and Martin was credited with a triple. Peyton Brennan then singled Martin home to tie the game at three apiece, and Will Gasparino followed him with a single to put the go-ahead run in scoring position, but Cashel Dugger struck out to end the inning.
With one out in the bottom of the ninth, Aidan Espinoza reached on an error by Purdue shortstop Westin Boyle. Bruins No. 9 hitter Phoenix Call tried to advance Espinoza with a bunt, and when Aaron Manias couldn’t corral the throw from pitcher Jake Kramer, suddenly the Bruins had runners on first and second with one out and the top of the order coming up. Dean West laid down a successful sacrifice bunt back to the mound to advance both runners, and Purdue elected to give Cholowsky a free pass. With a 2-1 count, Mulivai Levu lofted a sacrifice fly to score Espinoza and send UCLA on to Saturday’s semifinal.