Sophomore Matt Cavagnaro had an RBI single in the bottom of the ninth inning to tie the game at 3-3, and Penn State went on to defeat Michigan 4-3 in 11 innings on Friday at Beaver Field.

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. (May 20, 2005) - Freshman Scott Gaffney (Westbury, N.Y.) delivered a two-out RBI single in the bottom of the 11th inning to score junior Colin Runt (State College, Pa.) to give the Penn State baseball team a dramatic 4-3 win over Michigan Friday at Beaver Field to keep the Nittany Lions' playoff hopes alive.

Penn State (28-24, 13-16 Big Ten) came into the weekend needing a four-game sweep over the Wolverines to make the Big Ten playoffs, and senior Clint Eury (Butler, Pa.) and a host of others delivered the first blow of the series.

Eury picked up the win by tossing 3.1 scoreless innings, while giving up just one hit, striking out four and walking two. He now has a scoreless innings streak of 10.0 innings. The two teams will meet in a pair of seven-inning games beginning at 1 p.m. Saturday. Both games can be heard live on State College's ESPN Radio WMAJ 1450 AM, and a link to listen will be available at www.GoPSUsports.com.

Senior Michael Milliron (DuBois, Pa.) extended his season-best hitting streak to 15 games with a single in his final at-bat in the 10th inning. He is the first Penn State baseball player to ever have two separate hitting streaks of 14 games or more in the same season. He had a 14 game hitting streak earlier this season.

Junior Lance Thompson (Brisbin, Pa.) went 2-for-4 and scored a run, Runt went 2-for-5, scored a run and drove in another, and Gaffney went 3-for-5 with an RBI.

Junior Sean Stidfole (New Bloomfield, Pa.) became the eighth pitcher in Penn State history to record 200 strikeouts. He fanned seven in the game, giving him 204 in his career to move him into seventh place on Penn State's all-time strikeout list.

Trailing 3-1 entering the ninth inning, Penn State rallied to tie the game after Thompson led off the inning with double off the fence in right-center field. Sophomore Jim Leitgeb (Elkton, Md.) followed with an RBI single, and was sacrificed over to second base by junior Aaron Greenfield (Villanova, Pa.). That chased Michigan ace Jim Brauer from the game for freshman Clayton Richard. Sophomore Matt Cavagnaro (Brightwaters, N.Y.) immediately hit a pinch-hit line drive single to right field to tie the ballgame. Richard got out of the jam with two strikeouts, including one of Gaffney.

But Gaffney made up for the strikeout in the 11th inning. After Richard retired the first two batters on fly balls. Runt singled through the left side, followed by another single through the left side by freshman James Spinelli (Berwyn, Pa.). Gaffney sat on a slider on the first pitch and lined it into center field for the game-winning hit.

Stidfole had an outstanding outing, going 7.2 innings, giving up just three runs on six hits. But he made a mistake in the first inning, leaving a ball up in the zone that Kyle Bohm hit over the left field fence to give the Wolverines a 2-0 lead.

Greenfield was hit by a pitch to lead off the second inning, and came around to score on an RBI single by Runt. Michigan took a 3-1 lead in the eighth inning on an RBI single by Bohm, who was 2-for-5 with three RBI.