The Gophers baseball team defeated Ohio State 5-4 in 18 innings on Saturday at Siebert Field in the longest Division I game since Rice defeat Houston 3-2 in 20 innings on May 31, 2015.
Gabe Knowles ended the 5-hour, 45-minute marathon with a one-out, bases-loaded single. The game began at 2 p.m. and was televised by the Big Ten Network.
The Gophers (19-23, 9-7) and Buckeyes (24-21, 7-9) were supposed to play a doubleheader Saturday (actually, they sort of did), but Game 2 was postponed until 10 a.m. Sunday. The final game of the series will follow that.
A one-out, seventh-inning RBI single by the Gophers' Eli Wilson sent the game to extra innings.
Five Gophers pitchers combined to strike out 22, and the bullpen closed the game with 10 ⅔ innings of shutout ball.
The Gophers had 15 hits — all singles — drew 15 walks and left 27 runners on base. The only extra-base hits in the game were a pair of doubles by the Buckeyes.
Three pitchers, including two for Ohio State, reached the 100-pitch mark. There were a total of 521 pitches in the game.
U softball hands Wildcats first league loss
The Gophers softball team (38-11, 19-2) handed Northwestern its first Big Ten loss of the season, defeating the Wildcats 8-0 in five innings before the third-largest home crowd (1,286) in program history.
