MSU Battles Back For 3-1 Win Over Penn State On Senior Day

MSU Battles Back For 3-1 Win Over Penn State On Senior Day EAST LANSING, Mich. - The Michigan State baseball team earned a series win over Penn State with a

MSU Battles Back For 3-1 Win Over Penn State On Senior Day

EAST LANSING, Mich. - The Michigan State baseball team earned a series win over Penn State with a 3-1 victory on Sunday afternoon in its final regular season home game at McLane Baseball Stadium at Kobs Field. The Spartans moved to 31-19 overall and 13-8 in Big Ten play with the win. The loss dropped the Nittany Lions to 18-28 and 6-14 in conference action.

MSU trailed 1-0 entering the bottom of the seventh inning before plating three runs, all with two outs. Mark Weist reached base on a fielder's choice with one out and came in to score the tying run on a single to right by Brandon Hughes. With runners on second and third and two outs, Chad Roskelly sent a bouncing ball up the middle just out of the reach of PSU shortstop Jim Haley. Hughes and Ryan Richardson scored on the play for a 3-1 Spartan lead and Joe Mockbee shut the door with two shutout innings out of the bullpen to pick up his second save of the year.

"Two-out base hits - those will win you a lot of ballgames. It was a big at-bat by Chad there late and a big at-bat by Brandon to tie it,” MSU head coach Jake Boss Jr., said. “We've shown a lot of character all year. We never feel like we're out of a ballgame. Their [Penn State's] guy really threw well. He did a heck of a job keeping our guys off balance. We got a big hit when we needed it and our pitching effort was outstanding."

"The freshmen came through on senior day, which is good. [Senior] Mark Weist scores the tying run. A senior led us on the mound in Jeff Kinley; he was lights out. We’re happy to send those guys off on a positive note here at home, but we have a lot of baseball left."

Jeff Kinley (4-2) earned the win on the mound and was outstanding in his third start of the season for MSU. Kinley allowed just one run on three hits over a career-high seven innings pitched and struck out five.

Ryan Krill stretched his hitting streak to a season-high 15 games with a 2-for-4 effort and Hughes also had two hits in the win.

After two scoreless innings to start the ballgame, Penn State pushed across the first run of the contest in the top of the third on an RBI single by leadoff hitter Greg Guers. The Nittany Lions could only manage one other hit off of Kinley after that however as the senior left-hander retired the final seven batters he faced.

Prior to game time, Michigan State honored the eight members of its 2015 senior class: Anthony Cheky, Jeff Kinley, Ryan Krill, Ryan Richardson, Blaise Salter, Chase Toth, Mick Van Vossen, Mark Weist and senior manager Kylie Cumback.

"It's a special group of guys. They've played a lot of baseball here over the last four years," said Boss. "A lot of them started as freshmen. A couple guys transferred in and have played really well. It's a great group of kids. These guys are students of the game. They've worked hard over the last four years and starting to see a lot of benefits to that late in the year. We're going to hope to play together for a long time here in the next couple months."

The Spartans will travel to Mount Pleasant on Tuesday, May 12, for a midweek matchup with Central Michigan before wrapping up the regular season next weekend at Minnesota. First pitch Tuesday is scheduled for 3:05 p.m. ET at CMU's Theunissen Stadium.