Raabe, Wassel Homer as Liffrig Earns First Career Win in Illinois Series Finale

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MINNEAPOLIS – The Minnesota Baseball team used a pair of fifth inning home runs to conclude their four-game series against Illinois with a victory on Sunday night, winning by a final score of 5-3.

Although the Gophers fell behind early as Illinois plated a first inning run on a Cam McDonald RBI single, the game would be controlled by Minnesota from that point forward.

Staying red hot at the plate, second baseman Zack Raabe brought the game even in the third inning with a deep RBI double to right-center. In the fourth, the Gophers took a 2-1 lead on an Easton Bertrand infield single to third base that plated Chase Stanke.

After taking the lead in the fourth, the Maroon & Gold maintained their advantage throughout the remainder of the night. The big inning for the Gophers came in the fifth, as Raabe and Jack Wassel launched back-to-back home runs to left and right field, respectively, to put Minnesota up, 4-1. Wassel's solo shot found the purple seats in the upper deck at U.S. Bank Stadium, representing a particularly deep blast for the Gopher third baseman.

Rounding out the scoring in the fifth, Andrew Wilhite drove in Sam Ireland with an RBI single to right field to increase the Gopher lead to 5-1.

Minnesota starting pitcher Jack Liffrig worked well into the game before eventually being lifted with two outs in the sixth inning. En route to earning his first career victory, Liffrig fired 5 2/3 innings with three earned runs allowed on eight hits and two walks while striking out three.

Exiting with a 5-3 lead after a two-run homer off the bat of Jacob Campbell brought Illinois within two, Liffrig was relieved by Joshua Culliver in the sixth. Culliver worked Minnesota out of the frame and went on to toss a scoreless seventh inning as well. The senior right-hander finished with 1 1/3 shutout innings, surrendering just one run while striking out one.

As Minnesota looked to preserve their two-run lead in the eighth and ninth, it would be the trio of Danny Kapala, Drake Davis and Ryan Duffy shutting the door for the U the rest of the way. Kapala opened up the eighth by retiring the lone batter he faced in a lefty-lefty matchup, before Davis entered the game and recorded a strikeout for the second out of the frame.

It was all Duffy from that moment on, as the southpaw pitched the final 1 1/3 innings to earn the save. Duffy allowed just one hit while striking out three.

Illinois starter Cole Kirschsieper was saddled with the loss, pitching 4 1/3 innings with five earned runs allowed on eight hits and one walk, striking out one.

Raabe finished 2-for-2 on the day with two RBI and three walks – two of which came via intentional free passes. With the two-hit day, Raabe finished 8-for-12 with four extra-base hits in the series to improve his season slash line to .571/.667/1.381. His OPS currently sits at 2.048 through the first two weekends of the year.

In addition to Raabe, Stanke and Bertrand both registered multi-hit games in the series finale.

Notable
With two more hits on Sunday, Zack Raabe is now batting .571/.667/1.381 on the season and owns an active 17-game on-base streak to pair with a 13-game hitting streak.

Liffrig earned his first career win, pitching 5 2/3 innings with three earned runs allowed on eight hits and two walks while striking out three. The sophomore left-hander was backed by former high school teammates, Ireland and Drew Stahl, in the field in his first collegiate victory.

Quotable
"Liffrig did a much better job of getting us on and off the field on defense," head coach John Anderson said. "A lot cleaner innings, quicker innings. I think that plays into having some energy on offense and it did help us in a lot of ways... Once we got a few guys to relax and hit a couple balls out of the ballpark, I think our hitting becomes more contagious and confidence spreads. I thought we did a really good job against this left-hander today in terms of how we approached him. It's a good start. It's a good feeling to leave the ballpark with. Hopefully, we can have a good week of practice and try to make some more adjustments, and get ready for Northwestern and see if we can play some better baseball like we did today."

"I was just filling it up and letting my defense do their job," said Liffrig. "You saw all the ground balls. I trust them with my life. A lot of momentum shifts just from making routine plays and not-so-routine plays... Just having dudes out there that you trust that much makes my job a lot easier."

Up Next
The Gophers are back for one last series at U.S. Bank Stadium next weekend. Minnesota will play Northwestern in a three-game set from Saturday to Monday, although the Wildcats will serve as the home team.

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