The regular season for the Ohio State baseball team season is over, but it’s now time for the Big Ten’s second season to begin, as the top six teams in the conference meet in the 2009 Big Ten tournament.
Among the teams that have a spot in this year’s tourney are OSU, Minnesota, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan State and Purdue.
“This is another season,” coach Bob Todd said. “You spend all year trying to get to this point and now what we got to do is enjoy it, but we also have to maintain our consistency and intensity.”
The tournament will be played at the newly constructed Huntington Park in downtown Columbus. It will be the first neutral-site Big Ten baseball tournament since 1994.
The games will begin on Wednesday and run through Sunday, deciding the Big Ten champion.
CHRISTIAN LAUTENSHCLEGER/THE LANTERNFreshman pitcher Ross Oltorik outruns a batter to first base during the April 22 game against Ball State. OSU lost 20-8.The No. 1-seeded OSU baseball team will play the winner of game one, which features Illinois and Michigan State.
The Buckeyes were awarded the top seed and a first round bye after winning the Big Ten Conference on the last day of the regular season.
“It’s critical that we got that bye so we don’t have to pitch anybody on Wednesday,” Todd said.
The Buckeyes took care of business against Iowa, and Penn State’s comeback over Minnesota gave OSU a half game lead over Minnesota and propelled it to a regular season championship.
It was the team’s 15th baseball championship in school history, and the Buckeyes will now head to the tournament for a Big Ten record 13th consecutive time.
Meanwhile, Minnesota dipped to No. 2 in the conference, giving them the No. 2 seed in the tourney. They will play the highest-seeded winning team from Wednesday’s games, which will either be Indiana or Purdue. Minnesota’s first game will be on Thursday afternoon.
Minnesota comes into the tournament after winning eight of their last 10 games. They are no strangers to the Big Ten tournament, as they have qualified for a record 25th time. Since 2000 the Gophers have received a first round bye six times.
The No. 3-seeded Indiana Hoosiers come into play on fire Wednesday. They tried to make things interesting in their last several games, winning six consecutive games before losing their season finale. Had they won, they would have been in a tie for second in the Big Ten.
Illinois will take the No. 4-seed after losing four out of their last five games and dropping to fourth in the Big Ten standings. With a couple games to go it looked like Illinois had the conference title wrapped up, but after OSU and Purdue each won two games from them, their title hopes were all but over.
Michigan State, the No. 5 seed, comes into the tournament for the first time since 2004. After posting a 13-11 record in the Big Ten, the Spartans did just enough to get into the tournament, then nearly threw it away by losing five of their last six games.
The highest-seeded team in the conference tourney are the No. 6-seeded Purdue Boilermakers. They won their last three league series to become the Big Ten’s sixth team to qualify for the conference tournament.
First round games will begin on Wednesday, featuring games one and two. Illinois takes on Michigan State in game one at 12:05 p.m. Game two is scheduled for 3:35 p.m., pitting Indiana against Purdue.
OSU and Minnesota will start tournament play on Thursday.
Nathan Schlabach can be reached at [email protected].
