On Saturday, in the Knoxville Regional of the NCAA Tournament, Indiana’s season ended. After an 8-7 loss to No. 7 seed Virginia in eight innings on Friday, the Hoosiers faced the challenge of winning two back-to-back games in one evening to advance to the regional final and save their season.
Indiana raced past Northern Kentucky in the first elimination game with an 8-0 win in five innings. Mere hours later, the Hoosiers lost to Virginia for the second time in as many days, this time by a score of 9-7 in season-ending fashion.
In the early evening, Indiana absolutely bounced back from the devastating loss suffered the night before. Every batter but one recorded at least one hit, as the Hoosiers applied consistent and unrelenting pressure across each and every inning.
Josie Bird’s two-run homer opened the scoring as early as the first frame, followed by multiple innings of quality small ball. Six Hoosiers reached base in the third inning, and four scored. A double, three singles, two walks and multiple stolen bases combined to create an effective, complementary attack.
Ellie Goins batted in another run in the fourth inning with a double, but hesitant baserunning held pinch runner Jada Ellison up at third base, on a play that could have seen her add to the tally as well. Brooke Mannon’s fly out in the next plate appearance ended the inning with a 7-0 lead, rather than a difference of eight runs that could initiate the run rule in the fifth frame.
The Indiana defense held up, though, and leadoff hitter Aly VanBrandt crushed a walk-off solo home run in the fifth inning to negate any prior disgruntlement. Remarkably, seven of Indiana’s eight runs, including the walk-off homer, came with two outs on the board. The run insurance came in conjunction with sophomore Ella Troutt’s complete game, featuring five scoreless innings, which conserved a great deal of arm strength after the five pitching changes made against Virginia the night before.
Indiana advanced, but didn’t have very much time to decompress before the next elimination game. Less than an hour later, the Hoosiers returned to action inside Sherri Parker Lee Stadium against the same team that booted them down to the elimination bracket a day prior. In the afternoon on Saturday, Virginia joined the Hoosiers in the elimination bracket after falling to No. 2 seed Tennessee by a score of 7-5 on Tennessee’s home field.
With the tournament lives of both teams on the line, Indiana sought revenge for the previous day’s defeat. However, as was the case on Friday, offensive output led the way in determining the result.
Virginia immediately lit up the scoreboard with three runs in the first inning, pouncing on redshirt junior Taylor Hess, who started in the circle for the Hoosiers. In response, Indiana made a pitching change before Hess could usher more than one batter back to the dugout, sending freshman Aubree Hooks in replacement.
Hooks escaped the inning without any further damage, and the top of the Indiana order promptly tied the score in the same frame, headlined by Bird’s second home run of the day. Even so, it would require at least one big inning to achieve victory.
Virginia found that big inning first, when in the third inning, two singles and a walk set the table for Alex Call’s grand slam. Mannon replaced Hooks in the circle after the disastrous blast that dispatched the first and only four runs scored against Hooks in her stint.
Mannon stymied the onslaught during her time in the circle, until Madison Greene’s two-run homer extended Virginia’s lead. Troutt stepped in for a scoreless closing shift at the outset of the seventh inning, but the Cavaliers had already dealt the decisive blow.
The entire Indiana lineup continued to produce, but couldn’t quite outpace the Cavaliers. Goins and Hannah Haberstroh combined to bat in three runs in the third inning, and a fielding error opened the door for Cassidy Kettleman to score an unearned run in the fourth inning. The power put forth by the Virginia lineup proved to be too much for the Hoosiers to overcome, though, in part because Indiana’s small-ball success never met a clutch big-inning companion.
Indiana’s loss serves as another reminder that advancing past the regional round of the NCAA Tournament is very difficult. Against some of the most productive lineups in the country, and some of the most dangerous pitchers, it’s imperative that a team constantly applies pressure to opposing defenses and almost never misses a step in the circle.
In this case, Virginia outpaced Indiana’s lineup twice, while the Hoosiers scrambled to locate the arm strength necessary to withstand the constantly oncoming headwind. The arduous task of playing three games in less than 36 hours certainly didn’t supply any sense of relief.
Either way, Indiana returns to the drawing board this offseason after a fourth consecutive NCAA Tournament appearance and a third 40-win season in four years. The Hoosiers excelled throughout the year, but couldn’t quite spearhead a landmark victory over an elite opponent. In Knoxville, Indiana’s struggles against the best of the best reappeared, and ultimately led to the end of a superb season.
