From the Big Ten baseball tournament in Omaha:

The Boilermakers fell behind early and lost to Michigan State 8-4 in Tuesday’s first game. Purdue will face the loser between No. 8 seed Iowa and No. 9 seed Illinois on Wednesday (10 a.m.) in an elimination game.

Tuesday’s loss was the team’s fourth straight after a seven-game winning streak put the Boilermakers in a position to avoid the double-elimination portion of the tournament. Now, Purdue faces a must-win or its once-promising season concludes far short of where it thought it would be after sweeping Indiana two weeks ago.

Starter Cole Van Assen was tagged for seven runs and eight hits in the first two innings but the offense never got on track until scoring four runs in the final two innings. We’ll see if Van Assen’s ability to pitch seven innings gives the bullpen the necessary arms to survive the rest of the tournament.

Shortstop Weston Boyle committed a key error in the first inning on what appeared to be a double play ball. From there, the Spartans scored four times and seized control.

Purdue didn’t record its first hit off MSU starter Aidan Donovan until the sixth and finished with seven.

As far as Wednesday’s opponent, the Boilermakers were swept by Iowa last weekend, giving up 39 runs and 52 hits. They won two of three against Illinois earlier in the season.