MSU’s Comeback Comes Up Short Sunday At Northwestern In Series Finale

Sunday, April 5

Rocky and Bernice Miller Park | Evanston, Ill.

2 PM ET / 1 PM CT

Michigan State University

10-19, 5-10

Northwestern

12-15-1, 5-7

Michigan State

Northwestern

Photo by: Erin Grady/MSU Athletic Communications

MSU’s Comeback Comes Up Short Sunday At Northwestern In Series Finale

4/5/2026 8:16:00 PM | Baseball

Box Score NU 8, MSU 6 Box Score

Spartans mount comeback in ninth, but the rally, inning and game come to close with bases loaded.

EVANSTON, Ill. -- Michigan State baseball was topped by Northwestern in a close game for the second day in a row, with an 8-6 loss in another back-and-forth battle on Sunday afternoon at NU's Rocky and Berenice Miller Park, in the clinching contest of the three-game Big Ten Conference weekend series.

The Spartans won Friday's opener, 5-1, but lost Saturday's game, 10-9 on a walk-off in the ninth inning and Sunday's two-run loss.

MSU was down 8-4 going into the ninth on Sunday, but scored a pair of runs and had the bases loaded when the rally, inning and the game came to a close.

The Spartans out-hit the Wildcats, 12-10, but left 16 runners on bases, leaving at least one runner on base in each inning, including the bases loaded in both the eighth and ninth innings, while leaving two on in the second, fourth and seventh stanzas.

"It's a disappointing loss today. We had several opportunities to win and just couldn't take advantage of them, and made too many mistakes today," MSU head coach Jake Boss Jr. said. "I'm proud of the fight that they showed in the ninth. It's a really good group of kids that plays hard all the time, so I'm not surprised that we put ourselves in a position to tie the game or take the lead in the ninth. We just made too many mistakes throughout the course of the entire game, and they made more plays than we did, so they deserved to win. It's a disappointing way to end the series, but we just flat out were not good enough today."

Northwestern jumped out to an early 2-0 lead with two runs in its opening at bat. MSU got on the board with a run in the fourth, but NU countered with a run in the home half of the fourth. The Spartans got a run in the fifth to pull to 3-2, but the Wildcats tacked on a run in the sixth. MSU rallied with one run in both the seventh and eighth frames to tie it at 4-all. It was a short-lived tie as NU scored four runs in the eighth to take an 8-4 lead into the ninth.

Freshman infielder CJ Deckinga started off the ninth-inning rally with an infield single. Two batters later, senior catcher Noah Bright singled, and senior outfielder Nick Williams followed with a walk to load the bases with one out. After a flyout for the second out, sophomore infielder Dayton Murphy came to bat and smacked a single up the middle to drive in Deckinga and Bright. Sophomore outfielder Isaac Sturgess got hit by a pitch to refill the bases full of Spartans with two outs, but a groundout put an end to MSU's comeback and the game.

With Sunday's result, Michigan State is now 10-19 overall and 5-10 in B1G action. Northwestern moves to 12-15-1 overall and 5-7 in conference competition. Even with Sunday's outcome, MSU has won seven of the last 10 meetings with NU, and the Spartans still hold a 106-58-1 all-time series advantage, including 45-27-1 in Evanston games.

Saturday and Sunday's close games of one and two-run decisions means that four of the last six games in the MSU-NU series have been decided by two runs or less, as part of six of 11 and nine of 16 meetings decided by three runs or fewer. The Wildcats have won the last two weekend series played in Evanston.

Bright finished with a career-high five hits on the day, going 5-for-5 with two RBI and two runs scored, with one of each coming on a solo home run to lead off the eighth inning. After entering Sunday with just nine hits on the season in his previous 49 at bats, Bright broke out of the slump in a major way, with a single in the second, an RBI base hit in the fourth, a base knock in the sixth, the home run in the eighth and a single in the ninth and coming in to score.

Bright is the first Spartan to go 5-for-5 this season and the first since last season when teammate Ryan McKay was 5-for-5 at Penn State on March 23, 2025.

Murphy joined Bright with a home run, the first of his career, with a solo homer to lead off the eighth, and got a loud ovation from a large contingent of family and friends, as he's from Crystal Lake, Illinois, one of seven Spartans from the Land of Lincoln on the roster, compared to only four Illinois natives on Northwestern's roster.

With his two-run single in the ninth and the solo homer in the seventh, Murphy finished with three RBI on a 2-for-5 outing with one run scored and also a HBP.

Sturgess joined Bright and Murphy with multiple hits on the day, going 2-for-5 with a double and a single, with one run scored. Seymour, also from Illinois, finished 1-for-5 with an RBI and a walk, while Deckinga, another one of the seven Spartans from Illinois, was 1-for-5 with two runs scored, and fellow freshman, designated hitter Isaiah Domey was 1-for-4 with a walk.

Freshman southpaw Bobby Crane made his first collegiate start on the mound, with three hits and two runs in 1.0 IP, while junior Ben Kochany (1.0 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 1 K), junior Gannon Grundman (1.1 IP, 1 H 1 R, 1 BB, 3 K), junior Logan Pikur (2.2 IP, 2 H, 1 R, 0 BB, 0 K), freshman Kyle Rudolph (1.0 IP, 1 H, 2 R, 1 BB, 0 K), freshman Andrew Everson (0.1 IP, 1 H, 2 $, 1 BB, 1 K) and redshirt-freshman Brady Chambers (0.2 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 0 K) finished out the game.

After the Wildcats took an early 2-0 lead with a pair of runs in the first, the Spartans got on the board with a run in the fourth. McKay sparked the rally with a leadoff hit-by-pitch. Deckinga followed with a fielder's choice that erased McKay from the basepaths, and Domey followed with a walk to advance Deckinga to second. Bright followed with a seeing-eye single to left to drive in Decking and get the Spartans on the board and cut the margin to 2-1. Northwestern quickly regained the two-run advantage with a run in the bottom of the fourth.

In the fifth, Sturgess knocked a 1-out double to the left-center gap, and Seymour followed with an RBI single up the middle to score Sturges and pull MSU within, 3-2.

NU again stretched its lead to two runs at 4-2 with a run in the home half of the sixth, before Murphy's leadoff homer in the seventh, and Bright's leadoff round-tripper in the eighth, tied it up at 4-4.

The game wasn't tied long as Northwestern plated four runs on two hits in the bottom of the eighth, setting up MSU's ninth-inning comeback that fell just short.

Michigan State returns home Sunday, then heads to play at Notre Dame on Wednesday, April 8 at 5:30 p.m., before returning home to host Michigan in a three-game B1G series, Friday-Sunday, April 10-12 at Jeff Ishbia Field at McLane Stadium.

The Spartans' schedule is subject to change due to weather and flooding possibilities, so fans can stay tuned to MSUSpartans.com and @MSUBaseball on Twitter for schedule updates.

Fans can follow game action with "Watch Live," "Listen Live" and "Live Stats" links where available.

The Michigan State baseball season ticket package, which includes 24 home games at Jeff Ishbia Field at McLane Stadium, and also single game tickets, are available online, at msuspartans.evenue.net, by contacting the Spartan Ticket Office at 517-355-1610 or by email at tickets@msu.edu for questions or more information, or fans can visit the MSU Ticket Office in person, located in 1855 Place.