CSUN baseball beat the Purdue Boilermakers 4-1 thanks to senior starting pitcher Samuel Myers only allowing one hit and striking out 10 batters in his 8.1 innings pitched.
“Going in the first couple of innings I had my fastball and slider,” Myers said. “As the game went on my other pitches started coming back to me and i was pretty much using all of them throughout the rest of the game.”
After scoring 16 runs in their last game, the Matadors quickly started where they left off, with junior Justin Toerner hitting a three-run home run, and junior Kevin Riley following up with his own solo home run to go up 4-0 in the second inning.
“The hitters are doing a good job,” said assistant coach Chris Hom. “They are trying to stay simple, the pitcher made a few mistakes on the middle of the plate and our guys put a couple of good swings on them.”
Still, the Purdue starting pitcher Gareth Stroh would not allow any more runs in his outing even though he continued to struggle with his command. Stroh was effectively wild in his outing allowing six hits, walking five,but striking out six batters and stranding eight batters in his four innings pitched.
However, those were all the runs they needed since Myers was the exact opposite of Stroh. Myers was efficient and kept the Purdue batters off balance, allowing only one hit and two walks through his first five innings, also getting the Purdue batters to ground into two double plays.
Myers then shut down the Purdue batters in his last 2.1 innings of work. Myers allowed only one base runner and struck out five of his final seven batters he faced.
After walking shortstop Harry Shipley, Myers was replaced by senior pitcher Conner O’Neil.
O’Neil quickly got the first batter to fly out, but then allowed a double to score Purdue’s only run and erase the shutout.
O’Neil then struck out the last batter to end the game and give the Matadors a win along with a 9-6 record.
Pitcher Tei Vanderford goes in for game three for the Matadors against Purdue on March 12 at 1 p.m on Matador Field.
