The Ohio State softball team was staring at a real possibility of dropping two-straight games and losing a lot of ground in the Big Ten against one of the bottom two teams of the league. That’s not to take anything away from Purdue, but if Ohio State has designs of doing damage in the postseason, it has to stay in the hunt to be a part of the postseason.
After losing the first game of the three-game weekend series, OSU really needed to bounce back on Saturday afternoon, but things didn’t look too promising early on.
In fact, Ohio State fell behind 8-0 early on after the Boilermakers scored one run in the first inning, and then plated seven in the top of the third. And while that usually spells trouble for teams, OSU found a way to get right back in it by scoring five runs to answer in the bottom of the third inning. Meggie Ottie capped the scoring in the inning with a two-run double and suddenly, we had an 8 to 5 game.
Ohio State and Purdue traded runs in the fourth and sixth innings, the score for OSU coming from a Jaycee Ruberti RBI single in the fourth, and the score sat at 9-6 after six innings. That’s when the Buckeyes unleashed the offense.
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In the bottom of the sixth inning, Ohio State brought six runs home to turn a three-run deficit into a three-run lead. Meggie Ottie started the scoring with a sac fly to make it 9-7, then Ruberti hit a two-run single to tie things up at 9 apiece. Mariah Rodriguez followed with a two-out, two-run single of her own to give the Buckeyes an 11-9 lead. OSU would cap off the scoring on Kaitlyn Farley’s dash home on a wild pitch to make it 12-9.
The comeback kids đź’Ş#GoBucks pic.twitter.com/FLcYXZK9bm
— Ohio State Softball (@OhioStateSB) April 22, 2023
Purdue couldn’t get anything going in the top of the seventh, and Ohio State completed quite the comeback. With the victory, OSU improved to 29-15 on the season overall, and 9-7 in the Big Ten.
The Buckeyes and Boilermakers will play the rubber match of the three-game series on Sunday at 1 p.m. ET.
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