Baseball Gameday: Purdue Fort Wayne/Bellarmine

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. - With 13 of its next 14 games at home, the Indiana baseball program will play games on five straight days at Bart Kaufman Field. The homestand will begin on Wednesday (March 8) against Purdue Fort Wayne and continue with a four-game series against Bellarmine to close out the week.

Indiana (5-6) will host Purdue Fort Wayne (2-10) in a midweek contest, while Bellarmine (5-6) will head to Bloomington for four games over four days after a midweek contest at Northern Kentucky.

Gameday Info
Wednesday, March 8, 2023
IU: Ty Bothwell, LHP, R-Sr.
PFW: TBA

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Thursday, March 9, 2023
IU: TBA
BU: TBA

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Friday, March 10, 2023
IU: TBA
BU: TBA

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Saturday, March 11, 2023
IU: TBA
BU: TBA

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Sunday, March 12, 2023
IU: TBA
BU: TBA

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Live Audio: bit.ly/IUAudio
Live Stats: bit.ly/IUStatbroadcast

Quick Hitters

Indiana and Purdue Fort Wayne will meet for the ninth time in program history on Wednesday. The Hoosiers have won the first eight meetings, which includes a 12-2 win at Bart Kaufman Field last season. MORE ON PAGE 3
Indiana placed four student-athletes on the All-Big Ten Freshman Team in 2022 and redshirt-junior Matthew Ellis was named third-team All-B1G by the conference coaches.
Freshman Carter Mathison and redshirt-senior Matthew Ellis each hit home runs on opening weekend to bring their career totals to 20 and 19, respectively, for the Cream and Crimson. Mathison has played in 70 career games and has 67 career RBIs over that span to go along with 20 home runs. MORE ON PAGE 7
Senior Hunter Jessee carries a 29-game reached base streak into the week, which dates back to the 2022 season, and marks a career long for the left-handed hitter. MORE ON PAGE 7
Jessee posted his second career multi home run game versus Miami (Ohio) with a first inning home run to right field and a seventh inning shot to the opposite field.
Indiana's pitching staff posted a program record 600 strikeouts in 2022. That mark ranks No. 2 in Big Ten history, behind Iowa's 602 punchouts in 2022, as well. MORE ON PAGE 8
Head coach Jeff Mercer became the eighth IU skipper to reach 100 victories in the cream and crimson with a series finale win at Auburn on February 19, 2023. FULL BIO ON PAGE 17

Scouting the Opponent
Purdue Fort Wayne

Over its first 11 games, Purdue Fort Wayne is averaging 7.3 hits and 3.8 runs per game on a .220 average, while the pitching staff owns an ERA of 9.59 and an opponents batting average of .311.
Four Purdue Fort Wayne hitters are in double digits in the hit column for the season, led by Jarrett Bickel with 12 and a team-best .273 average. Calieb Johnson leads the team with eight RBIs.
On the mound, PFW has used 17 pitchers on the season, with eight of those throwing five-plus innings. The staff has struck out 83 and walked 71 over 91 innings of work.

Bellarmine

Entering the week with a 5-6 record, Bellarmine plays Northern Kentucky in a midweek contest before heading to Bloomington.
Casey Sorg leads the team with a .342 batting average, and is tied atop the hits (13) and RBI (9) categories. Will Aubel has a team-best three home runs and nine RBIs.

Series Notes
Purdue Fort Wayne

Indiana and Purdue Fort Wayne meet for the ninth time in program history on Wednesday, with Indiana winning each of the first eight meetings.
The Hoosiers and Mastodons first met during the 1980 season when IU swept a doubleheader on May 14 by the scores of 17-1 and 10-0.
The most recent meeting was played in Bloomington in 2022, a 12-2 Indiana victory. Matthew Ellis hit a pair of home runs and joined Josh Pyne with a game-high three RBIs.
Three of the eight previous meetings have been decided by double-digit runs, while three of them have been decided by two runs or fewer.

Bellarmine

The four-game series with Bellarmine will mark the first meeting between the two programs in school history. The Knights are in the third year of Division I athletics and a member of the ASUN.

Next Event

Players Mentioned

Ty Bothwell

Matthew Ellis

Hunter Jessee

Carter Mathison

Josh Pyne