Purdue Sports Weekend Primer: March 8

Baseball returns to campus this weekend. Purdue has its earliest baseball home opener ever as the Boilermakers host Albany for a four-game set at Alexander Field. Softball is on the road again, as it is in Florida at the FGCU Spring Break Classic, where it will face one of the national powers in softball. Wrestling is also at the grueling Big Ten championships, where Matt Ramos is the No. 1 seed at 125 pounds.

Weekend Schedule:

Baseball – vs. Albany (4 games), Friday-Sunday

Softball – Friday vs. Pittsburgh 10am, vs. #12 Florida State 12:15pm; Saturday vs. #12 Florida State 10am, vs. Pittsburgh 3pm; Sunday vs. Western Michigan 10am

Men’s Swimming & Diving – Last Chance NCAA Qualifying at Indiana Friday-Saturday

Women’s Tennis – vs. Wisconsin Noon Saturday, vs. Minnesota 11am Sunday

Indoor Track & Field – NCAA Championships (Boston, MA)

Big Ten Championships – Saturday-Sunday at Maryland

Baseball dropped its first midweek game of the season this week at Notre Dame on Tuesday night 11-2. The Boilers trailed just 3-2 after five innings when Connor Caskenette drove in a pair of runs on a bases loaded single. The Fighting Irish broke the game open with four in the sixth and three in the seventh. That dropped Purdue to 8-4 on the season in advance of today’s scheduled home opener.

Albany (0-6) at Purdue (8-4)

Friday to Sunday, March 8-10 / Watch B1G+

Series Opener: Friday, March 8 at 4 p.m. ET

Doubleheader: Saturday, March 9 at 1 p.m. ET

Series Finale: Sunday, March 10 at 1 p.m. ET

Alexander Field / West Lafayette, Indiana

PROBABLE PITCHING MATCHUPS

Game 1: Jordan Morales (Grad, LHP) vs. UA's Owen Birkman (Sr, RHP)

Game 2: Luke Wagner (Sr, LHP) vs. UA's Matt Mariano (R-So, RHP)

Game 3: Kyle Iwinski (Sr, RHP) vs. TBA for UA

Game 4: TBA for Purdue vs. UA's Kyle Locklear (R-Sr, RHP)

Albany enters the weekend winless on the season after being swept by #8 Tennessee in three games and by George Washington in three games. Tennessee outscored them 41-11 and George Washington outscored them 26-9.

Purdue is scheduled to play 30 of its remaining 44 games at home, marking the first time in modern program history that it will play the majority of its schedule at home. The only road trips left are Big Ten three-game series against Ohio State, Rutgers, Northwestern, and Michigan, plus single midweek games at Indiana State and Illinois-Chicago.

The Boilers currently have three players batting over .400 on the young season. Freshman Luke Gaffney leads with a .422 average, while Logan Sutter is batting .409 with three home runs and 14 RBI. Camden Gasser is also batting exactly .400. Gaffney is currently fourth in the entire conference and has twice been named Big Ten Freshman of the Week. Caskenette leads the league with 17 RBI.

This is a weekend series Purdue really needs to sweep. Weather is likely going to play havoc with things, but it was scheduled to stack some wins before the meat of the season. An improved Purdue offense should be able to tee off on an Albany pitching staff that has a collective ERA of 12.33.

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