2013 Purdue Boilermakers Baseball
2012 Season Review During its historic 2012 season, Purdue baseball won a programrecord 45 games, captured a pair of Big Ten titles, earned the right to host an NCAA Regional and closed out Lambert Field in thrilling fashion.
Tyler Spillner
The Boilermakers (45-14, 17-7 Big Ten) began the season 14-1, won 10 consecutive games twice, posted their 20th win before April 1, reached the 30-win mark at the earliest date (April 20) in program history and won their first Big Ten title since 1909. In its 16 games at Lambert, the home of the program since 1965, Purdue won three times in walk-off fashion and locked up the Big Ten title May 12 in front of a large group of program alumni. Head coach Doug Schreiber was named the Big Ten Coach of the Year after leading the Boilers to the most wins by a Big Ten team since 2008. He won his 400th and program-record 408th career games at Lambert in the spring of 2012. His 408th victory as the leader of the program, April 15 in the finale of a series sweep of Illinois, made the 14th-year skipper Purdue’s all-time wins leader. By clinching the title on May 12 with a win in the 20th conference game of the season, the Boilers became the earliest team to clinch the title since the Big Ten schedule moved from 32 to 24 games in 2009. As the No. 1 seed at the Big Ten Tournament, Purdue won three consecutive games to win the six-team event for the first time. The Boilermakers made their fifth straight tournament appearance, the longest active streak in the league as well as the longest in program history. Dating back to 2008, Purdue is 172-110 overall (.610) and 7551 in Big Ten play (.595). Both records represent the best marks in the league.
Cameron Perkins
Along with qualifying for the NCAA Tournament for the second time in program history (1987), the Boilers were selected as one of 16 Regional hosts. Lambert Field did not meet some of the specific NCAA requirements necessary to host a Regional. But Purdue was able to work in conjunction with the Gary South Shore RailCats to play the Regional at the U.S. Steel Yard in Northwest Indiana. The opening game of the Regional was a 21-inning marathon between Kentucky and Kent State, the second-longest game in NCAA Tournament history. Purdue became the fifth Big Ten school (excluding Nebraska) to host an NCAA Regional and the first since Michigan in 2008. Of the 16 Regional hosts in 2012, the Boilers were the only one that did not have the advantage of playing at its home ballpark. But playing away from campus was nothing new for Purdue. The Boilermakers posted 32 of their wins away from Lambert Field, ranking second in the nation in true road wins. Purdue’s .763 winning percentage ranked fourth nationally. The Boilermakers enjoyed six undefeated weekends and went 9-0 in midweek action, extending their midweek win streak to 17 dating back to March 2011. Purdue won the opening game of each of its eight Big Ten series and was pushed to a rubber game only twice. The Boilers had a losing record in only three of their 16 weekends. Purdue was also a perfect 8-0 against fellow teams from the state of Indiana, beating the rival Hoosiers twice at the Big Ten Tournament after the two teams finished one-two in the final conference standings. The Boilers have now won seven straight games against IU dating back to May 2010 and 11 of the last 14 going back to the 2008 Big Ten Tournament. Kevin Plawecki and Joe Haase teamed up to give Purdue a sweep of Big Ten Player and Pitcher of the Year honors, respectively. They were the program’s first recipients of the awards. Plawecki hit a pair of go-
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2013 Purdue Baseball Record Book • PurdueSports.com