Hoosiers Bow Out Battling, Heads Held High

Sunday, June 2

Louisville, Ky.

Noon

Indiana University

37-23

Louisville

45-16

Indiana

Louisville

6/2/2019 8:39:00 PM | Baseball

Box Score Box Score (PDF)

By: Andy Graham
IUHoosiers.com

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – The post-season didn't really go as Hoosiers had hoped.

But that doesn't obscure all the hopes realized during a very successful debut season for coach Jeff Mercer at Indiana.

That campaign concluded during regional play Sunday afternoon as host Louisville, the NCAA baseball tournament's No. 7 overall seed, eliminated the Hoosiers in what ended up as a 9-7 donnybrook.

IU went 1-2 at the regional but will still proudly reign as the outright Big Ten regular-season champ, the first time that title was achieved by a first-year coach in the conference since 1982.

And the 37-23 Hoosiers went down battling against a 45-16 Louisville team all the way to a disputed final strike call against senior catcher Ryan Fineman that killed a ninth-inning rally.

Louisville is elite. It has won the most games of any team in the nation since coach Dan McDonnell started in 2007. Sunday afternoon marked his 599^th victory at U of L and his winning percentage is .716. Louisville led the ACC in both pitching and hitting this season.

But McDonnell made it clear he sees a worthy neighborhood rival arising in Bloomington.

"Want to congratulate Indiana on a great year," McDonnell said in his opening post-game statement to the media. "I know it hurts when it's over. Lot of emotion there at the end but, obviously, they are very deserving of being at this point.

"Really good team and showed how much they battle, all the way to the finish. I mean, they didn't make it easy. They made us use a lot of our top bullpen arms. They could have easily folded up, but they didn't. So, just want to congratulate them on a great season. Great program. Bright future."

At present, while the Hoosiers can rightly take pride in their season as a whole, they will rue some chances that got away Sunday. Louisville amassed a 7-0 lead through five innings while Indiana left eight runners on base, half of those in scoring position.

That started in the top of the first.

Matt Lloyd reached on an error with one out and Elijah Dunham made Louisville pay for a defensive shift by bunting for a single down an unguarded third base line. But a fielder's choice and pop-out ensued.

After IU starter Tanner Gordon opened with a 1-2-3 inning, Louisville got its offense in gear by putting men in motion and getting fortuitous results in the second.

Alex Binelas reached on an error. He then took off for second and Jake Snider hit the ball right to the shortstop hole -- which was vacant, because Jeremy Houston had moved to cover second.

Danny Oriente then rocked a 2-RBI double to the right-center gap. And after a walk and a sacrifice put men on second and third, Justin Lavey's ground ball hit off the mound, then a diving Houston's glove, into center for a 2-RBI single that made it 4-0.

IU looked like it might respond right away, loading the bases with none out in top of the third, only to instead see Louisville extend its lead in the bottom of the frame.

A leadoff walk by Cade Bunnell and lined singles by Drew Ashley and Lloyd had the sacks juiced for Indiana.

But Louisville starter Bobby Miller got a big strikeout of Eliijah Dunham, IU's hottest hitter down the season's stretch, then fanned Cole Barr. Scotty Bradley's looping liner to left-center was caught to end the threat.

Binelas homered to dead center after a Tyler Fitzgerald single to make it 6-0 in the bottom of the third, ending Gordon's day. Braden Scott came on to get the final two outs of the frame.

IU tried again in the top of the fifth. Lloyd laced a one-out double off the wall in left-center, then Dunham was hit by a pitch. But Miller again responded with a pair of strikeouts, doing a little dance off the mound afterward.

"The game was decided on the details of the game," Mercer said. "(Such as) our inability early to hit with runners in scoring position."

Fortune wasn't smiling much on the Hoosiers, either. A mysterious balk call cost them a run in the fifth.

Tyler Fitzgerald, who had drawn a one-out walk, was awarded second via the balk. From there, he stole a run, literally. He was going to third on Binelas' ensuing groundout to second and just kept right on running, beating the relay throw home.

But the Hoosiers kept showing signs they were in no mood to wave white flags. "We're never out of a game," Lloyd said later. "That's the whole mindset."

Houston ended the Louisville fifth with a flat-out diving catch of a foul down the left field line that was as good as it gets.

And the IU offense broke through with a big four-run sixth, finally getting to Miller (who, among other things, had thrown 18 first-pitch strikes to the 23 men he faced through five innings.)

After a walk to Grant Richardson and a hit batsman, Richardson took third on a wild pitch and scored as Cade Bunnell grounded a RBI single to right to get Indiana on the board.

Ashley then cleared the bases with a 2-RBI triple to left-center that pulled IU within 7-3. That ended Miller's day. Adam Elliott, a lefty, came on to pitch to lefty Lloyd, who did his job with a groundout to the right side that plated Ashley and made it 7-4.

Louisville mounted a threat in its half of the inning but Lloyd, the senior closer who took the mound to start the inning, thwarted it by striking out Lucas Dunn on a 3-2 fastball.

The Cardinals did get to Lloyd in the seventh, however, upping their lead to 9-4. Following successive singles by Logan Wyatt and Fitzgerald to lead off the inning, Binelas blasted a double to right-center. Wyatt scored but Fitzgerald was nailed at the plate by a fine 9-4-2 relay by IU. Drew Campbell subsequently plated Binelas with a lined single to left.

Campbell then robbed Fineman of at least extra bases (and perhaps a two-run homer) with a fine leaping catch at the wall in right in the eighth, but the Hoosiers still found a way to score in the inning.

Cade Bunnell drew a one out walk to put men on first and second. Ashley hit into a fielder's choice, but Louisville threw it away trying to turn two and Richardson, who had worked a leadoff walk, scored.

Heading to the ninth down 9-5, the Hoosiers turned up the heat on U of L closer Michael McAvene.

McAvene started the inning with two strikeouts, but Bradley then bombed a solo homer to dead center. Houston walked, stole second and came home on Richardson's RBI single to center, making it 9-7.

That brought Fineman to the plate, representing the tying run.

McAvene, with the count 2-2, thought he had strike three but didn't get the call and issued a quick objection – and that got him tossed from the game by home plate umpire Ken Langford.

Louisville was compelled to bring in Michael Kirian, who inherited the 3-2 count. He threw a pitch to Fineman that catcher Henry Davis seemed to smother as it neared the ground. Strike three call. Game over.

"It's been a great year," Mercer said. "You look at what this group was able to accomplish … we were preseason (picked) fourth or fifth in the conference.

"We lost a couple of really key players to the (MLB) draft last year. Lost a couple of really good returning players to injury. Lost our Sunday starter to an injury. Had to come up with two new starters for the weekend, and we started five freshmen or sophomores every day.

"These guys just went out and worked their butts off. They invested and bought into a new coaching staff and a different system. They worked really hard.

"They believed when there wasn't a lot of reason to, necessarily, from a preseason expectations standpoint. And they went out and achieved … we're just very thankful. I know our coaching staff is. I know me and my family are … just very appreciative, very thankful, and very proud, overall."

And Mercer remains determined to build an even better program for an appreciative Hoosier fan base.

"We're very fortunate to be at a place like Indiana," he said, "where you have such a large fan base, in general … it is nice when you have so much support across not only the state, but really the country.

"And for us, we have to go back to work. We have to get better in all phases of the game. We have to become more physical. We have to be bigger and stronger, faster and have to have more electric stuff on the mound. We have to have more dominant stuff on the mound. We have to be able to go toe-to-toe, athlete-for-athlete."

So that future post-seasons last longer.