Baseball Faces Critical Series at USC

CJ Richmond is seen at the Purdue Baseball game versus Northwestern on May 2nd, 2025. | Courtesy of Purdue baseball.

This weekend is the biggest weekend of not just this season, but for a while for Purdue baseball. The program last made the NCAA Tournament in 2018, when it was a 2 seed in the Chapel Hill regional and went 2-1. The last time Purdue was in position to return to the tournament was in 2024, when the Boilers were 30-15 after winning the first game of a series with Indiana. The Boilers were even leading the Big Ten at the time, but collapsed to lose 9 of the last 11 games that year and miss the field.

This year Purdue heads to Los Angeles with four weekends remaining and a chance to once again make the NCAA Tournament. The Trojans present the last chance for Purdue to add Tier 1 wins onto its profile, so taking at least one game from USC would be excellent. A series win probably gets Purdue above the “Last Four In” mark of tournament projections.

**Purdue (28-12, 15-6 Big Ten) at #21 USC (31-11, 13-8 Big Ten)**April 24-26 / Stream B1G+
Series Opener: Friday, April 24 at 10 p.m. ET
Middle Game: Saturday, April 25 at 5 p.m. ET
Series Finale: Sunday, April 26 at 4 p.m. ET
Dedeaux Field / Los Angeles, California
All-Time Series: First Meetings

PROBABLE PITCHING MATCHUPS
Friday: Cole Van Assen (Jr, RHP) vs. USC’s Mason Edwards (Jr, LHP)
Saturday: Zach Erdman (Sr, LHP) vs. USC’s Grant Govel (So, RHP)
Sunday: Austin Klug (Sr, RHP) vs. USC’s Andrew Johnson (So, RHP)

Although USC is ranked in the top 25, the teams have been headed in opposite directions the last few weeks. Purdue has won seven consecutive Big Ten games to move into third place in the league. USC has lost six of its last nine. It does have a sweep of Iowa in LA, but it was swept by No. 1 UCLA and then last week it got swept at Nebraska. The Cornhuskers even won two of the games via run rule as they scored 36 runs over the course of the weekend.