Olund raking for Purdue; more baseball notes

Alec Olund was so frustrated with his junior season — the rightfielder hit only .219, and was benched for a period in late April after it sank as low as .188 — that he devoted himself to preparing as well as possible for his final year.

In the summer, he gained 20 pounds — “pure muscle,” he said — to put himself in top shape for the fall. But after taking time off for winter break, which he spent back home in Crown Point, his right shoulder started to hurt.

And even as the season started in February, he couldn't get the pain to go away.

He felt everything slipping away. Not only did he think his preparation had been a waste, but his dream, one he’d had since he was a little leaguer, was disappearing.

“The vision that I’ve had since a little kid of playing Division I baseball — especially (at) Purdue because it was really good when I was younger — I wanted to come here really badly,” said Olund, who has recovered from the early-season injury to become an integral spark to Purdue’s 13-game winning streak. “I saw how good they were doing (then) and I wanted to control that and wanted to come to Purdue.

“This has been my vision of what I wanted to happen, and now being my senior year and finally starting to see everything paying off and starting to take shape, it’s been an incredible journey. It’s really hard to put into words.”

But the numbers paint a picture. Olund has been raking lately. In Purdue’s current 13-game winning streak, the 6-foot-2, 200-pounder is hitting a team-best .417, with five doubles and 12 runs batted in, after having only two RBIs in his first 17 games. His .333 average is now tops on the Boilermakers. Hitting out of the 7 hole, he — along with No. 8 hitter Evan Warden — is giving the Boilermakers (29-16 overall, 13-4 in the Big Ten) balance to their offensive lineup.

But the start of the season was a mess. Olund made only one start, while playing in only five games, in the Boilermakers’ first 21 games. Since the second game against Lipscomb, though, in home-opening double-hitter on March 23, Olund has started every game but one. And he turned an early April slump, which dropped his average to only .216 on April 14 — the date of the Minnesota game that he didn’t start — into a surge. In the month since, he’s raised his average 117 points.

And in Olund’s starts, Purdue is now 21-4.

“My whole thing with him was that he looked hurt, acted hurt, it was painful to watch,” Coach Mark Wasikowski said of Olund’s early-season issues, “and I was just telling Alec the whole time, ‘Hey, I’ll be there for you. However I can help, let me know.’ It being a medical issue, once that thing got resolved and he was able to play full-go, you see that he’s been a very, very productive player for us.”

Olund is a Purdue guy, characterized by his work and determination. He was part of a the losing seasons, a starter in right field when Purdue won only 10 games total in 2016. But he’s helped the Boilermakers turn it around, now with a chance at a late-season run that could put them in the NCAA Tournament.

“(The losing) was incredibly hard,” he said. “I’d go home and people would ask me how we had done. It’s like a scar you don’t want to talk about, you don’t want to reveal what happened. It’s really hard going through that, but you’ve got to continue to show up every day because you feel like you’re that close to a break through.

“We’ve just been clawing and clawing and clawing, scratching at the door, and we broke through that door. That’s why the win streak that we’ve been on and finally seeing the success from all the work we put in, that’s why it’s so indescribable to me, hard to put into words, because I’ve experienced the extreme lows, the lowest you could feel. And now I feel like I’m on an extreme high, and to experience both of those, it’s been an awesome journey.”

Wednesday looked like it might be the end of the streak.

Down three in the top of the ninth at Ball State, Purdue was nearly out of outs. But Harry Shipley delivered a three-run homer, on an inside-the-parker no less, that tied the game. Then, freshman Ben Nisle hit a two-run single up the middle, rallying the Boilermakers to a 10-8 win. They’ve won 13 straight, tying a program record.

“I figured it’d be a trap game,” said Wasikowski, whose team plays at Ohio State (31-16, 11-7) for three games this weekend. “You’re coming off a Tuesday game that you score a lot of runs (27-3 over Fort Wayne) and then you’re on the road on Wednesday, a night game to a day game the next day, and it’s in front of your conference weekend, and no matter what you say about it, your guys are looking forward to a conference weekend. They know what’s on the line with all the social media and stuff that’s out there right now. It’s a trap game and for us to not play our best baseball and still come out with a win shows good fight and resiliency. I liked it.”

It was ugly early. Purdue committed three errors, its most since April 7, helping Ball State take a lead early, then a 6-5 edge into the eighth. The Cardinals scored two insurance runs in the eighth, appearing to take complete control.

But the Boilermakers rallied, winning for the fourth time this season after trailing following the eighth inning.

“We played pretty bad, honestly, throughout the whole game and it shows that we’re good enough to win when we don’t play our best,” Shipley said. “We’re hot right now and we’re going to keep playing our best, which is good. But even when we’re not playing our best, we’ll be able to come out on top.”

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With construction on campus, Olund used to chose different paths to get from his apartment near Wabash Landing to Alexander Field.

Not anymore.

Since the start of Purdue’s winning streak, now the longest currently in the country, he’s driven the same route every day.

“I put my socks on the same way now, batting gloves, helmet, elbow guard, everything goes on in the same fashion, the same timing, same on-deck routine,” Olund said. “So there’s a lot of superstitions. Same catch partners, same spots where we play catch. So many.”

It’s the way it is in baseball. Superstitions are critical, especially when winning.

Purdue has a Chewbacca mask in its dugout. It doesn’t serve much function — obviously — but the Star Wars character wasn’t with the Boilermakers on the spring break trip, when they went 1-9, but he’s been back around since.

“It looks like they’re having a lot of fun and as long as it’s not distasteful to other people, there’s respect there for the opposing team and umpires and they respect the game, I’m fine with it," Wasikowski said. "It’ s a fun game, meant to be fun. I encourage them every day, ‘How much fun can you have today and still prepare and be businesslike instead of frivolous?’ That’s something we’ve been harping on everyday.”

The Boilermakers plan to keep doing what they’re doing, especially if it means wins.

“It’s a combination of everyone’s superstition that is creating this huge superstitious bubble,” Olund said. “We all do the same things every day.”

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