University of Minnesota Athletics
Minnesota Crushes Michigan State 20-6 to Earn Doubleheader
4/22/2006 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
It was also the most hits by Minnesota in a game since it had 25 against Penn State on Apr. 11, 2003. The Golden Gophers scored 20 runs for the first times since Apr. 28, 2004 when they had 20 against St. Thomas.
The win also gave Minnesota Head Coach John Anderson his 399th career Big Ten victory. Anderson’s next conference victory would make him the first coach in Big Ten history to collect 400 conference wins in a career.
Minnesota had nine different players collect hits and 11 different players score runs in the game. Of the nine players that collected hits, eight had at least two in the game and five collected three or more in the game.
Senior Andy Hunter (West St. Paul, Minn.) matched career highs in home runs (2) and RBI (5) for Minnesota as he went three-for-five with two home runs, two runs and five RBI. With the five RBI, Hunter now has 100 career Big Ten RBI.
Mike Mee (Richfield, Minn.) also had a career-high in runs (4) and tied a career-high in RBI with four. Mee reached base four times and was three-for-five with a grand slam, four runs and four RBI.
Junior Sean Kommerstad (Minnetonka, Minn.) had a career-high in hits (4), runs (3) and RBI (4). Kommerstad was four-for-six with three runs, three doubles and four RBI in the game. Kommerstad joined Mee, Herbert, Sam Steidl and Robb Quinlan as the only Golden Gophers to have hit three or more doubles in a single game since 1998.
Matt Nohelty (Rothschild, Wis.) also tied a career-high three hits and three RBI, as he went three-for-six with two runs, three RBI and a triple. Junior Dan Lyons (Rochester, Minn.) also was three-for-five with two runs and two RBI.
Jeremy Chlan (Apple Valley, Minn.), Tony Leseman (St. Paul, Minn.) and Luke MacLean (Bloomington, Minn.) each also had two hits in the game.
Junior John Gaub (South St. Paul, Minn.) started and gave up four hits and three runs, while striking out four in four innings of work to pick up the win. Gaub moved to 1-2 with the victory.
Minnesota chased starter Jon Dwan with 12 hits and 11 runs off Dwan in just three innings of work.
Minnesota jumped out to an early 4-0 lead with four runs in the top of the fourth inning. Nohelty got things started with a leadoff single, and moved to second on a walk by Mee. Kommerstad followed with a two-run double to give the Golden Gophers a 2-0 lead. Hunter gave Minnesota a 4-0 lead when he crushed a two-run homer over the right field wall.
Michigan State answered with two runs of its own in the bottom of the first inning. Troy Krider drew a leadoff walk and came around to score when Kyle Day delivered a one-out two-run homer to cut the Golden Gopher lead to 4-2.
The Golden Gophers scored a single run in the top of the second inning to make it 5-2. Mee delivered a one-out single, and moved to second with two outs on a groundout by Kommerstad. Hunter followed with an RBI single give Minnesota a 5-2 lead.
Minnesota pushed six runs across in the top of the third to move the lead out to 11-2. The inning was highlighted by a two-run double by Kommerstad and a second two-run homer by Hunter.
Mee delivered a grand slam in the top of the fourth inning to extend Minnesota’s lead to 15-2.
Michigan State scored a single run to make it 15-3 in the bottom of the fourth, but Nohelty delivered a two-run triple to right centerfield to push the Golden Gopher lead to 17-3 in the top of the fifth.
Minnesota pushed the lead out to 20-3 in the top of the sixth highlighted by a two-run triple by Lyons. The Golden Gophers ended up scoring runs in the first six innings of the game.
Michigan State pushed three runs across the plate in the bottom of sixth highlighted by Krider’s two-run single to move it to the final score of 20-6.
Minnesota will try to salvage a split of the series in the final game of the series against Michigan State on Sunday, Apr. 23 at 11 a.m. (CT). That game will be webcast on gophersports.com.
