Some Tiger in the Hoosier tank?
4/14/2019 9:10:00 PM | Baseball
By Andy Graham
IUHoosiers.com
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. - That "Sunday Red" thing didn't just work in Augusta, Ga.
Back in Bloomington, Ind., Indiana's host baseball Hoosiers donned their Sunday-special red uniforms to complete a significant four-game series sweep of No. 35-RPI Evansville (entering the weekend) with a dramatic 6-5 victory in 10 innings.
Evansville Memorial product Drew Ashley deep-sixed his hometown team when, with the bases loaded and one out in the IU 10th, the IU sophomore drove an Austin Allinger pitch off the left field wall for a walk-off single.
"It's tremendously valuable," IU coach Jeff Mercer said of the sweep. "Obviously, winning a four-game set is really, really difficult. But winning it against a really good team – a Top 35 RPI club, a club that beat a really good Dallas Baptist team last weekend …
"We talk about putting ourselves in position to compete (for) winning a conference tournament, winning a regional. And to be in those environments, you have to go play good teams. And obviously Evansville is a quality club, well-coached. It's a huge series sweep for us."
There was some Tiger in the Indiana tank all weekend.
The Hoosiers dominated most of the series – out-scoring Evansville by a combined 19-4 in the first three games – and then showed how to perform under pressure in Sunday's cold, wet conditions.
Stalwart senior closer Matt Lloyd hadn't allowed IU foes an earned run all season before Evansville rallied from a 5-3 deficit in the top of the ninth to forge a 5-5 tie.
Evansville's Craig Shepherd fought off a series of tough Lloyd pitches, then lined a leadoff double to ignite the rally. Nate Reeder drove him in with a ground single to center to make it 5-4.
A couple of seeing-eye ground singles ensued, loading the bases, and then the tying run was walked home.
So the bases remained loaded with no outs when Danny Borgstrom hit a slow roller to Ashley at second.
Ashley's hustling throw home came in on a hop and Wyatt Cross – who caught all 37 innings of the series with senior classmate Ryan Fineman still sidelined by injury – snagged the ball for a crucial force-out at home.
"That's a tough play," Ashley recalled. "It was kind of a read thing, where we were reading the runner, with where we were playing. But I felt like I got a good jump on it, then Wyatt made a great pick
on it to help me out with the throw."
With the bases still loaded, one down, the scored still deadlocked at 5-5, the Hoosiers then came up with a spectacular double-play to stop the bleeding.
Matt Jones hit a looping liner toward IU shortstop Justin Walker. But it was just wide enough of Walker to prevent him catching it in the air. Walker had to short-hop it, find a way to tag second base and hurry a throw to Scotty Bradley at first. Bradley's back-handed sweep of the short throw completed the twin-killing that kept Evansville from taking the lead.
"We talk so much and work so much on our core being a defensive team. In those situations, there are decisions you have to make," Mercer said. "You make the decision, 'I'm going to be locked-in here, I'm going to compete, even though it's a bad situation that we're in.'
"You can either do that or you can say, 'This is ridiculous, how we got into this position. It's raining. It's cold and it's wet. We've won three games (in the series) so …' But we never did that. We never lost our composure. We've spent so much time working on those things, it was incredible to see the guys go out and just compete through it and make big-time plays."
Offense trumped defense earl on for both teams, though.
The Aces (17-15) tallied a pair of unearned runs off IU starter Cam Beauchamp in the first. A walk, a one-out Reeder single, a dropped foul-territory pop fly and subsequent Tanner Craig double, then a A.J. Fritz RBI groundout added up.
Evansville bumped its lead to 3-0 in the second as Jones supplied a one-out single and came home on Sam Troyer's double to left.
The Hoosiers (24-12) doubled-down in retaliating with a four-run second while batting around. IU got back-to-back-to-back doubles leading off from Bradley, Cole Barr and Grant Richardson.
After a walk and hit batsman subsequently loaded the bases, with two down and IU still trailing 3-2, Matt Gorski put the Hoosiers ahead with a clutch 2-RBI double laced down the leftfield line.
And that amounted to all the scoring for either side till the eighth.
Jones' lined single with two out in the Evansville eighth was the Aces' first hit since the third inning as a series of IU relievers – Connor Manous, Braden Scott, Gabe Bierman and Grant Sloan – had previously held sway.
Lloyd came on to close out the Evansville eighth unscathed and the Hoosiers then upped their lead to 5-3 in their half of the inning.
Richardson roped an opposite-field double down the leftfield line, was sacrificed to third by Walker and scored on a wild pitch.
Then came the key UE ninth, when the Aces rallied determinedly to tie before great defense saved the day for the hosts.
Shepherd doubled again in the Evansville 10th, but IU reliever Austin Long fanned the other three hitters he faced, giving his team a chance to win it in its half of the 10th.
Walker whacked Indiana's seventh double of the day with one out in the bottom of the 10th. The Aces opted to walk Evansville Reitz product Elijah Dunham intentionally to set up force-out and double-play opportunities, then Cross worked a walk to load the bases.
That set the stage for Ashley, who got a fastball and knew what to do with it.
"All you're trying to do is hit a fly ball to the outfield there because Justin (Walker) is going to do his job," Ashley said, referencing Walker's speed. "He's gonna tag up and score. My job is not too difficult there. You're just trying to do one thing."
He did it. And, sure, doing it against his hometown team meant a bit more.
"It's huge," Ashley said. "It was huge going back home Friday night and playing against them there (as UE hosted the series opener). Just being in front of the hometown crowd and seeing all those people. Seeing all my friends at the game, really, and then I know a bunch of those guys on that team, so it's great to see them.
"It's always fun to compete against those guys."
Compete the Hoosiers most definitely did.
"I was really proud of how tough we were," Mercer said. "The whole weekend was really good."
The toughness. The result. The Sunday fashion statement.
Tiger Woods – adorned by his customary scarlet shirt before putting on a green jacket on a very special Sunday for him at The Masters down in Georgia – would have approved.?
IUHoosiers.com
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. - That "Sunday Red" thing didn't just work in Augusta, Ga.
Back in Bloomington, Ind., Indiana's host baseball Hoosiers donned their Sunday-special red uniforms to complete a significant four-game series sweep of No. 35-RPI Evansville (entering the weekend) with a dramatic 6-5 victory in 10 innings.
Evansville Memorial product Drew Ashley deep-sixed his hometown team when, with the bases loaded and one out in the IU 10th, the IU sophomore drove an Austin Allinger pitch off the left field wall for a walk-off single.
"It's tremendously valuable," IU coach Jeff Mercer said of the sweep. "Obviously, winning a four-game set is really, really difficult. But winning it against a really good team – a Top 35 RPI club, a club that beat a really good Dallas Baptist team last weekend …
"We talk about putting ourselves in position to compete (for) winning a conference tournament, winning a regional. And to be in those environments, you have to go play good teams. And obviously Evansville is a quality club, well-coached. It's a huge series sweep for us."
There was some Tiger in the Indiana tank all weekend.
The Hoosiers dominated most of the series – out-scoring Evansville by a combined 19-4 in the first three games – and then showed how to perform under pressure in Sunday's cold, wet conditions.
Stalwart senior closer Matt Lloyd hadn't allowed IU foes an earned run all season before Evansville rallied from a 5-3 deficit in the top of the ninth to forge a 5-5 tie.
Evansville's Craig Shepherd fought off a series of tough Lloyd pitches, then lined a leadoff double to ignite the rally. Nate Reeder drove him in with a ground single to center to make it 5-4.
A couple of seeing-eye ground singles ensued, loading the bases, and then the tying run was walked home.
So the bases remained loaded with no outs when Danny Borgstrom hit a slow roller to Ashley at second.
Ashley's hustling throw home came in on a hop and Wyatt Cross – who caught all 37 innings of the series with senior classmate Ryan Fineman still sidelined by injury – snagged the ball for a crucial force-out at home.
"That's a tough play," Ashley recalled. "It was kind of a read thing, where we were reading the runner, with where we were playing. But I felt like I got a good jump on it, then Wyatt made a great pick
on it to help me out with the throw."
With the bases still loaded, one down, the scored still deadlocked at 5-5, the Hoosiers then came up with a spectacular double-play to stop the bleeding.
Matt Jones hit a looping liner toward IU shortstop Justin Walker. But it was just wide enough of Walker to prevent him catching it in the air. Walker had to short-hop it, find a way to tag second base and hurry a throw to Scotty Bradley at first. Bradley's back-handed sweep of the short throw completed the twin-killing that kept Evansville from taking the lead.
"We talk so much and work so much on our core being a defensive team. In those situations, there are decisions you have to make," Mercer said. "You make the decision, 'I'm going to be locked-in here, I'm going to compete, even though it's a bad situation that we're in.'
"You can either do that or you can say, 'This is ridiculous, how we got into this position. It's raining. It's cold and it's wet. We've won three games (in the series) so …' But we never did that. We never lost our composure. We've spent so much time working on those things, it was incredible to see the guys go out and just compete through it and make big-time plays."
Offense trumped defense earl on for both teams, though.
The Aces (17-15) tallied a pair of unearned runs off IU starter Cam Beauchamp in the first. A walk, a one-out Reeder single, a dropped foul-territory pop fly and subsequent Tanner Craig double, then a A.J. Fritz RBI groundout added up.
Evansville bumped its lead to 3-0 in the second as Jones supplied a one-out single and came home on Sam Troyer's double to left.
The Hoosiers (24-12) doubled-down in retaliating with a four-run second while batting around. IU got back-to-back-to-back doubles leading off from Bradley, Cole Barr and Grant Richardson.
After a walk and hit batsman subsequently loaded the bases, with two down and IU still trailing 3-2, Matt Gorski put the Hoosiers ahead with a clutch 2-RBI double laced down the leftfield line.
And that amounted to all the scoring for either side till the eighth.
Jones' lined single with two out in the Evansville eighth was the Aces' first hit since the third inning as a series of IU relievers – Connor Manous, Braden Scott, Gabe Bierman and Grant Sloan – had previously held sway.
Lloyd came on to close out the Evansville eighth unscathed and the Hoosiers then upped their lead to 5-3 in their half of the inning.
Richardson roped an opposite-field double down the leftfield line, was sacrificed to third by Walker and scored on a wild pitch.
Then came the key UE ninth, when the Aces rallied determinedly to tie before great defense saved the day for the hosts.
Shepherd doubled again in the Evansville 10th, but IU reliever Austin Long fanned the other three hitters he faced, giving his team a chance to win it in its half of the 10th.
Walker whacked Indiana's seventh double of the day with one out in the bottom of the 10th. The Aces opted to walk Evansville Reitz product Elijah Dunham intentionally to set up force-out and double-play opportunities, then Cross worked a walk to load the bases.
That set the stage for Ashley, who got a fastball and knew what to do with it.
"All you're trying to do is hit a fly ball to the outfield there because Justin (Walker) is going to do his job," Ashley said, referencing Walker's speed. "He's gonna tag up and score. My job is not too difficult there. You're just trying to do one thing."
He did it. And, sure, doing it against his hometown team meant a bit more.
"It's huge," Ashley said. "It was huge going back home Friday night and playing against them there (as UE hosted the series opener). Just being in front of the hometown crowd and seeing all those people. Seeing all my friends at the game, really, and then I know a bunch of those guys on that team, so it's great to see them.
"It's always fun to compete against those guys."
Compete the Hoosiers most definitely did.
"I was really proud of how tough we were," Mercer said. "The whole weekend was really good."
The toughness. The result. The Sunday fashion statement.
Tiger Woods – adorned by his customary scarlet shirt before putting on a green jacket on a very special Sunday for him at The Masters down in Georgia – would have approved.?
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