Spartans hold on, win rubber match over Wolverines

ANN ARBOR — One day after it used a late rally to knock off No. 16 Michigan in East Lansing, the Michigan State baseball team had to stave off a late scare of its own.

But even after the Wolverines scored three runs in the final two innings on Sunday, the Spartans escaped Ray Fisher Stadium with a 7-4 win. Michigan State improved to 30-11 on the season and 10-5 in Big Ten play, hurdling Michigan in the conference standings.

Spartan first baseman Jordan Zimmerman was 2-for-4 at the plate with three runs and a pair of RBIs, and Joe Mockbee threw 4.2 innings of one-run ball.

“Every time we needed to make a big play, we made it, even down to the last pitch,” said Michigan State coach Jake Boss Jr. “(We) just kept coming at ‘em with one here, one there.”

The Spartans broke the game open in the top of the fifth, stringing together four consecutive two-out hits to break a 1-1 tie.

Shortstop Royce Ando started the damage with a single up the middle, and then a double from center fielder Brandon Hughes scored Ando from first. Zimmerman tripled deep to right center on the next pitch to score Hughes, and an RBI single by Dan Durkin put Michigan State up 4-1.

“We got it going early, and when we got a runner on base, we kind of rallied around it,” Zimmerman said.

That was apparent in the fifth, but perhaps most important in the sixth inning. Sitting on a 4-1 lead, Michigan State posted back-to-back doubles to open the inning, with DH Zack McGuire’s RBI double chasing Michigan starter Evan Hill and serving as the eventual game-winning RBI. Hill allowed five earned runs on nine hits in five innings of work.

Michigan’s best chance to comeback came in the eighth inning. Left fielder Matt Ramsay drew a leadoff walk — his third free base of the day — and right fielder Carmen Benedetti singled to advance him. Center fielder Cody Bruder drove Ramsay in two batters later, and shortstop Michael Brdar trimmed the lead to 6-3 soon after with an RBI single.

That loaded the bases for Michigan, but the Wolverines couldn’t capitalize. Jonathan Engelmann struck out and Ako Thomas popped out in consecutive at bats to the end the inning. The Wolverines left 11 runners on base throughout the game.

“There’s no drills for clutch hitting,” said Michigan coach Erik Bakich. “Sometimes you get better at clutch hitting by being in those moments over and over again and getting those repetitions and those opportunities.”

In the top of the ninth, Michigan State had a chance to pull away, loading the bases with one out. It looked like the Spartans would do just that, as Zack McGuire drilled a ball deep to right, but Carmen Benedetti laid out for the catch and limited the damage to one run on a sac fly. After the game, Boss called Benedetti’s play one of the greatest defensive plays he had ever seen.

Michigan sought to use that momentum to generate one more rally in the ninth, but it wasn’t nearly enough. Even after Ramsay laced an RBI double down the third-base line to trim the deficit to three, Michigan wasn’t able to do anything more. Walter Borkovich came in and slammed the door for the Spartans, sealing the win and putting an exclamation point on a series in which they took two of three from the Wolverines.

“It was just a classic case of they played better than we did,” Bakich said.