Miami Student

Issue date: 4/18/08 Section: Sports

Junior Tommy Nurre tags a Xavier base runner Tuesday at McKie field in a 7-2 victory. Miami won consecutive games for only the third time this season. Their 3-1 win over Purdue pushed them to a 3-1 record against Big 10 teams this year.

The Redhawks seems to have awakened after a slow start to the season. Led by their hot bats and homerun hitting, the RedHawks brought excitement to the field and their own dugout this week beating Purdue University and Xavier University.

Junior Jordan Petraitis extended his hitting streak to nine games over the two-game period but his most important hit came in the bottom of the seventh inning against the Boilermakers Tuesday evening. With a two ball, one strike count, Petraitis lifted a hanging breaking ball over the left center field wall for his fourth homerun of the season and a 5-2 RedHawk lead.

"It was a big boost for us," Petraitis said. "We've been struggling all year as everyone knows, and that moment put us over the edge and in a good spot heading into the weekend."

Petraitis continued to see the ball well this week, carrying over from last week's stellar performance where he went 10-21 from the plate, with a .471 batting average and seven RBI's.

"It feels like it had been coming all year," Petraitis said. "In baseball you go through cold and hot streaks, it's a part of the game, finally a little hard work is paying off."

The RedHawks jumped to a quick lead in the first after a sacrifice fly by Junior Tommy Nurre and an RBI triple by Freshman John Hornke. Purdue's Dan Black however put the team on his shoulders bringing the Boilermakers even at 2-2 with two homeruns of his own.

Purdue had several chances to put away the RedHawks, loading the bases in the third and fourth innings, but were unable to produce a single run from those key moments of the game.

With a window of opportunity, junior J.D. Mynhier led off the bottom of the seventh inning with a pinch-hit single. Two batters later, senior Evan Armitage took a four-pitch walk to bring in Patraitis hot bat. Petraitis, unlike the Boilermakers, was able to take advantage of the men on base and drove in both runners along with himself with his three-run homerun.

Continued...

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