After opening the weekend with an 8-6 defeat of the Golden Gophers, Indiana baseball was back at Bart Kaufman Field on Saturday. The Hoosiers followed up a come-from-behind win Friday with a second in as many days, taking game two of the series 7-2 to claim their first series victory of the season as well as their first in Big Ten play.
Early on, the story of the game was the pitching. Indiana (9-12, 3-5 Big Ten) trotted out graduate student LHP Tony Neubeck, who gave head coach Jeff Mercer a much-needed quality start. Neubeck spanned six innings, allowing two earned runs on six hits while walking two and striking out eight. Mercer detailed the importance of Neubeck’s performance postgame.
“He covers the innings, but he also really sets the tone for the group, too,” Mercer said. “His ability to just stay composed, continue to attack, execute pitches, keep it close, I think it keeps the group engaged.”
The only two runs of the game for Minnesota (15-8, 1-4) came in the fourth and fifth innings. In the top of the fourth, senior Michael Lippe singled to right to put the Golden Gophers on the board. In the following inning, junior Jack Spanier homered to left to double the lead. Minnesota was held scoreless the rest of the way and failed to score against the Hoosiers in seven of nine innings for the second-straight day.
Indiana, meanwhile, was shut down early by junior RHP Isaac Morton. The Hoosiers were hitless through four innings and had just two baserunners reach via a walk and a HBP during that span. However, the script was flipped in the bottom of the fifth, as Indiana took the lead and held onto it the rest of the way.
Back-to-back solo home runs from redshirt-freshman Brayden Ricketts and sophomore Cole Decker quickly erased a two-run deficit. Then, with freshman Landen Fry and sophomore Hogan Denny on base, sophomore Jake Hanley launched the third home run of the inning for the Hoosiers over the left field wall, giving Indiana its first lead of the afternoon at 5-2.
The Hoosiers plated additional runs in the sixth and seventh innings, as Fry made it 6-2 with an RBI single in the sixth while sophomore Caleb Koskie did the same in the seventh to give Indiana a five-run cushion. The offense has combined for 15 runs in the first two games of the series against the Golden Gophers, which is an encouraging sign for Mercer considering the struggles it faced early in the season.
“We’re a better team than we were two weeks ago,” Mercer said. “We’re a better offense. So it’s a lot more like what we’re accustomed to seeing.”
After Neubeck exited, redshirt-junior RHP Jacob Vogel and junior RHP Jackson Yarberry combined to hold Minnesota scoreless over the final three innings of the game while striking out three and allowing just two hits. Because Indiana only needed three arms, it puts their pitching staff in a much better position heading into the series finale.
The Hoosiers will look to complete the sweep of the Golden Gophers on Sunday, as first pitch is scheduled for 12:30 p.m. at Bart Kaufman Field.
