Baseball Gameday: host Xavier

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – For the third straight weekend weather will play a factor in the weekend schedule, as the Indiana baseball program will host its first weekend series at Bart Kaufman Field against Xavier. The series will begin on Thursday (March 17) at 6 p.m.

Indiana (7-9) will put its perfect home record on the line in the unorthodox four-game series with Xavier (5-12). The Thursday start will be followed by an off-day on Friday (March 18), and the series will close with a single game on Saturday (March 19) and a doubleheader on Saturday (March 20).

The Hoosiers are coming off of a 20-7 rout of Kentucky in the midweek, while the Musketeers dropped a 2-1 decision at Wright State on Wednesday in 10 innings.

Gameday Info

Thursday, March 17 (6 p.m.)
Probable Starters
IU: Jack Perkins, RHP, R-Jr.
XU: Miles Halligan, RHP, So.

Live Video: bit.ly/3IfYzXd
Live Audio: bit.ly/IUAudio
Live Stats: bit.ly/IUStatbroadcast

Saturday, March 19 (Noon)
Probable Starters
IU: TBA
XU: Trevor Olson, LHP, Gr.

Live Video: bit.ly/3IbUvHL
Live Audio: bit.ly/IUAudio
Live Stats: bit.ly/IUStatbroadcast

Sunday, March 20 (Noon)
Probable Starters
IU: Bradley Brehmer, RHP, Sr.
XU: George Eisenhardt, RHP, Fr.

Live Video: bit.ly/36oCWHg
Live Audio: bit.ly/IUAudio
Live Stats: bit.ly/IUStatbroadcast

Sunday, March 20 (approx. 3:30 p.m.)
Probable Starters
IU: Ryan Kraft, LHP, Fr.
XU: Lane Flamm, RHP, Sr.

Live Video: bit.ly/3IhPTQ8
Live Audio: bit.ly/IUAudio
Live Stats: bit.ly/IUStatbroadcast

Quick Hitters

After a rough opening weekend, the Indiana pitching staff has started to find its groove and it showed in a shutout of Cincinnati on Tuesday.
MORE ON PAGE 7
Redshirt-junior Matt Ellis has been seeing the ball well and leads the Big Ten lead in home runs. The left-handed hitter has also hit some mammoth home runs so far in 2022.
MORE ON PAGE 3 & 8
Redshirt-junior Jack Perkins is off to a solid start to the 2022 season on the mound in his first season in the cream and crimson.
MORE ON PAGE 7
Head coach Jeff Mercer owns 78 victories as the Indiana frontman and is poised to become the eighth IU skipper to reach 100 victories in the cream and crimson.
FULL BIO ON PAGE 4
Freshman Josh Pyne is off to a hot start to his college career and enjoyed a productive week at the plate last week, as he led the team in average, hits and RBIs.
MORE ON PAGE 7 & 14
Freshman Brock Tibbitts took a pair of pitches out of the park in the IU's season opener versus Miami (Ohio), but you don't have to look far in the record books for the last rookie to hit multiple home runs in a game.
MORE ON PAGE 3 & 7
Graduate student Tyler Doanes has been a table setter for IU and ranks among the national leaders in walks through four weeks of the season.
MORE ON PAGE 7
Indiana matched a school standard with four student-athletes selected in the first 10 rounds of the Major League Baseball Draft in 2021.
MORE ON PAGE 7

Scouting the Opponent

Xavier enters with a 5-12 record after a midweek setback at Wright State in extra innings. The Musketeers lost the first nine games of the year, won five straight and now have lost the last three games.
Xavier is averaging 14 base runners per game with nine hits and five walks/HPB per contest and have stolen 35 bases in 17 games played.
The bugaboo for the Musketeers has been its 10.1 strikeouts per game and 16 double plays hit into.
Luke Franzoni has carried the Xavier offense with nine home runs and 27 RBIs. He has also walked 14 times and scored 15 runs.
On the mound, no Musketeer pitcher is above the 1.0 IP per game line and 12 arms have made at least three appearances on the season.
Of the pitchers that have made a start, the lowest ERA of that group is Dorsey Chatham's 6.14 mark over 7 1/3 innings of work in two starts.

Series Notes

Indiana and Xavier have met 29 times prior to this weekend's series, with IU owning a 26-3 all-time edge in the series.
The first meeting came in 1932 when Indiana claimed a pair of victories on April 15-16.
The Musketeers came to Bloomington for a three-game series in 2017, as the Hoosiers took all three games.
Indiana won the first nine meetings from 1932-1987, won eight straight games from 1989-2008 and are on a current seven game winning streak entering this weekend.
Xavier's wins in the series came in 1988, 2009 and 2012. Two of those wins ('88 & '09) came in Cincinnati, while the 2012 victory was in Bloomington.

Indiana University Athletics

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Players Mentioned

Bradley Brehmer

Tyler Doanes

Ryan Kraft

Jack Perkins

Josh Pyne

Brock Tibbitts

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