WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – Milwaukee baseball fell behind early and was unable to recover as the host Purdue Boilermakers won by a 12-8 score on Tuesday evening.
 
Charlie Marion led Milwaukee at the plate with a 3-for-4 effort with three RBIs. Gabe Roessler continues his hot stretch of late with two hits and a pair of RBIs. Tate Schmidt and Tristan Ellis had multi-hit afternoons.
 
Milwaukee trailed 7-1 after the first two innings as Purdue took advantage of five free bases from Panther pitching by walk or hit batter. The Boilermakers had five hits over the two frames to open the six-run advantage.
 
"Winning baseball against really good teams has to start on the mound and today we fell behind significantly early on," said head coach Shaun Wegner after the game. "It was quite a bit of self-inflicted damage but more so on the inability to start ahead in the counts and stay ahead … compound that with three errors and it's not a winning formula."
 
After early runs on a sacrifice fly by Caden Headlee and a two-run double by Marion, the Panthers got late RBIs from Roessler, Tyler Bickers and Marion again in the seventh and eighth innings. Milwaukee's five runs over the seventh and eighth sliced the deficit to three at 11-8 before a late insurance run by Purdue in the bottom of the inning proved to be the difference in the final score.
 
The Panthers finished the game outhitting their host by a 12-11 margin but fell short in their bid to complete the comeback as they stranded 12 runners on base.
 
"Offensively we saw some positive things and I was proud of the resiliency tonight, but we left far too many opportunities out there," added Wegner on the offense. "Being able to recapture momentum and then build upon it is typically what dictates baseball games … we needed to do more and weren't able to get the job done in a couple of situations."
 
Purdue also stranded its share of runners with 13 left on base throughout the contest. Lukas Cook paced the Boilermaker offense with four hits and two RBIs. Logan Sutter and Aaron Manias also drove in two runs apiece.
 
Tyler Deleskiewicz started the game for Milwaukee and did not make it out of the first inning as he took the loss. Keagon Kaufmann was the third Milwaukee pitcher to take the mound and pitched a game-high three innings for the Panthers without allowing an earned run and striking out a pair.
 
Zach Dohrmann did not allow an earned run in his inning of work, while Logan Snow finished the game for the Panthers without allowing a hit over 2/3 inning in the eighth.
 
Cole Van Assen got the win for Purdue, while Michael Vallone pitched two scoreless innings and struck out three. Avery Cook allowed just one hit and struck out three as he pitched the final two innings and earned his fourth save of the season.
 
"It's on to the second weekend of Horizon League play with one of the league favorites coming to Franklin Field," Wegner concluded. "We'd love to see some support out there as we compete against one of the current front runners."
 
After 19 games to open the season on the road, Milwaukee makes its long-awaited home debut on Friday. The Panthers welcome the Wright State Raiders to Franklin Field for a three-game set with the series currently scheduled to begin at 3:00 p.m. on Mar. 21.