No. 23 Hoosiers Knock of Ball State at Victory Field, 9-3

Tuesday, April 23

Victory Field (Indianapolis)

7 p.m.

Indiana University

28-13

Ball State

25-15

Indiana

Ball State

No. 23 Hoosiers Knock of Ball State at Victory Field, 9-3

4/24/2019 12:46:00 AM | Baseball

Box Score Box Score (PDF)

By Andy Graham
IUHoosiers.com

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. – The victory was secured late.

The No. 23-ranked Hoosiers posted a five-run ninth to forge the final 9-3 margin Tuesday night over Ball State at Victory Field.

Ball State (25-15, overall, and second in the MAC at 9-4) scored as many runs in three innings Tuesday night as it did April 14 through the entirety of a 14-3 loss at IU. The Cardinals got a single run in each of the first three frames, with Indiana starter Gabe Bierman pitching in tough luck.

BSU rallied with two down in the first. A backhand diving play and one-hop throw to first by Cole Barr was dropped. The play was ruled a hit for Ross Messina, and consecutive singles by John Ricotta and William Baker (a RBI shot down the leftfield line) ensued.

The Cards g0t a cheap run in the second. A throwing error left leadoff man Griffin Hulecki on second. He was sacrificed to third and scored on a passed ball.

Ball State got another big two-out hit in the third, this time from Mack Murphy, who doubled to right-center after a Messina single. IU had a good defensive relay and Messina would've been out at the plate had not his slide dislodged the ball.

At that juncture, Indiana not only trailed 3-0, but five of the first nine Hoosier hitters had fanned.

"We had to make an adjustment," Mercer said. "They threw probably 80 percent breaking balls all night … we just have the resiliency to weather the storm. We talk so much about controlling what you can control.

"If you follow the standard, the principles, we're trying to play to, eventually the game will break for you. You can't trick somebody forever. Eventually, you'll break through and break free."

The initial breakthrough came in the IU fourth. The breaking free came later.

The Hoosiers got on the board as Matt Gorski ripped a one-out double to right and eventually came home on Scotty Bradley's lined single to right, Bradley's second hit in as many at-bats.

Then Indiana tied it in the fifth.

IU freshman Grant Richardson led off with a ringing double that indented the wall in right-center. Elijah Dunham then cleared the wall in right – and the bases – by drilling a no-doubter to tie the game.

"They're a slider-dominant team, and the first pitch I saw was a slider," Dunham recalled of the at-bat. "Then their coach came out and did a mound visit, and we're taught to just be on 'fastball time,' and that's exactly what I did.

"I tried to stay on fastball time, and he left it up and hanging, and I just stayed on and tried to drive it, to hit it off the barrel."

It was gone as soon as it left that barrel. A prodigious shot.

Then IU took its first lead in the top of the sixth.

Gorski had a leadoff single and Cole Barr a one-out walk before Richardson put his team ahead (for good as it turned out) with a RBI single to right.

That gave Bierman (3-0) the win. Bierman, who was so ill Sunday at Michigan State he was send back to his hotel bedroom, allowed just two earned runs in his five innings and struck out six.

"(Bierman) gave us a great start," Mercer said. "He handled himself like a professional, an adult, coming off being sick. Five innings. Quality start.

"Then Connor Manous was electric. He was terrific. Elevated the fastball, located the breaking ball. Really, really good."

Manous was superb, supplying three scoreless innings, allowing just one hit and fanning five. And he got help from a sparkling defensive play from Gorski, who robbed William Baker of extra bases with a great catch in right-center in the eighth.

"I mean, that's a big-league play," Mercer said of Gorski's catch. "I don't say those things very often. That is a bonafide big-league play. The jump (he got) … thumped to the base of the way, 400 feet away, and for him to go make that play, he's got a special skill-set.

"But it you don't work that skill-set, you don't get jumps like that. It's not what he is, not what God gave him, but who he's working in his craft to become, which is an elite defender … and it changed the game.

"You could feel it. I'm not a big believer in momentum, like an invisible hand reaching down, but I do believe in a good, positive energy and you could feel the game change on that play."

Indeed, after nursing that 4-3 lead through the eighth, the Hoosiers sent 11 man to the plate to put the game away in the ninth.

Indiana loaded the bases on a Barr single, Richardson getting hit by a pitch in the hand, and a Dunham walk. Barr scored on a wild pitch to make it 5-3. Wyatt Cross (in for fellow catcher Ryan Fineman, who started the game after missing the entire month to injury till Tuesday) was then hit by a pitch to re-load the bases.

Drew Ashley and Gorski came up with consecutive RBI singles before Lloyd rocketed an opposite-field, 2-RBI double off the wall in left to make it 9-3.

While the Hoosiers fanned 18 times, they also finished with 12 hits, including doubles by Gorski, Richardson and Lloyd and the homer by Dunham. So there was feast to go with famine.

And Indiana won its 11^th game in its last 12 tries. And went to 9-0 versus in-state foes for the season.

"I think our team has finally found a standard that we all want to play by, live by," Dunham said. "I think everybody has bought in now.

"I think earlier in the season it was a little iffy as we were learning what the standard is, trying to figure it out, and I think now we've all bought in. We're all playing confident, and playing to that standard."

The Hoosiers (28-13 overall, 9-3 Big Ten) will try to maintain that standard, and its place atop the conference standings, when hosting defending champ Minnesota for a big three-game set this weekend – slated for 6:05 p.m. Friday, 2:05 p.m. Saturday and 12 p.m. Sunday.

And Mercer hopes he'll have all his troops available. Besides Lloyd, Tanner Gordon had to leave a game at Michigan State over the weekend after taking a line drive off his pitching elbow, and
Richardson's hand took a real shot Tuesday night.

"I think Tanner's fine. Just some bruising," Mercer said of Gordon. "And with Grant (Richardson) and Matt Lloyd tonight, if somebody's hurt, just got to have somebody step up and work your way through it."?